Catchin’ Up with Marcus Hubbard of The Soul Rebels
Announcing themselves with their 1994 debut album, Let Your Mind Be Free, The Soul Rebels made it clear that it wouldn’t be business as usual. They were young guys, and they didn’t want to be pigeonholed, but they still wanted to be known as a brass band. The way their drummer Lumar LeBlanc put it, “You don’t say ‘The Rolling Stones Rock ’n’ Roll Band.’ You just say ‘The Rolling Stones.’ But I still want to keep ‘brass band’ because it leads to gigs that other bands can’t do.”
New Orleans was one of hip hop’s most innovative metropolises. Maybe it’s not even stretching a point to say that rap originated in New Orleans’ Congo Square where enslaved Africans would congregate on Sundays to play their music. Brass band music as we’ve come to know it, certainly came from New Orleans.
In the spirit of New Orleans, The Soul Rebels are big on collaboration. They’ve worked with Metallica, Marilyn Manson, Nas, Katy Perry, Rakim, Green Day, Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, the Wu-Tang Clan, and many others.
We invited The Soul Rebels onto last year’s Big Easy Cruise, and they went over so well we immediately brought them back. Check your calendar for January 2026. Chances are, you have nothing anywhere near as much fun lined up, so come join us!
We spoke with The Soul Rebels’ trumpeter Marcus Hubbard. Born in New Orleans’ Seventh Ward, he went to Southern University in Baton Rouge, and he’s been playing trumpet since 1988.
We see your phone still has the New Orleans area code, but you live in Houston, right?
Yeah, Houston, but I kept my phone number. I left right before Katrina and set up shop here. Me and a lot of others. I’m back-and-forth all the time.
The Soul Rebels worked without a name for a time. How did you find who you were meant to be?
We got the name from Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers. The Nevilles helped us a lot when we were starting out. Cyril was enamored with us. They booked us as their opening act at Tipitina’s back when Tipitina’s didn’t book brass bands. Before that, we started out as a junior squad of the Olympia Brass Band in that original style. But were enamored with Earth, Wind & Fire, Tower of Power, and so on. We didn’t want to disrespect the Olympia Brass Band by using their name, and they said that because we had our own sound we should go with our own name. We’d been spit balling names and then Cyril Neville said, ‘Y’all are doing brass band a totally different way. Y’all bringing a lot of soul to it.’ He said, ‘Y’all sound like some rebels of this music.’ So Cyril gave us the name. He got it from a Bob Marley record. We all said, ‘Bam, that’s it!’
You’re a trumpeter. If you tell a young trumpeter to go listen to the founding god of jazz, Louis Armstrong, what would you tell him or her to listen for? What would you tell them to listen for in his playing, and bring forward into their own music?
Louis Armstrong’s message was to find your unique sound. I listened to Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Louis Armstrong, and local guys like Kermit Ruffins. They always had their own sound. My message to every musician is to find your own thing. Study as much as you can, listen to everyone, but develop your own identity. When you hear Louis Armstrong, you know it’s Louis Armstrong. But there are a lot of great trumpet players. You have to make yourself unique.
One thing that Louis Armstrong took seriously was entertaining rather than just playing for other musicians. The definition of “entertaining” has changed since Armstrong’s time, but do you feel the need to make folks forget whatever problems they have for a couple of hours and just surrender to the music?
That’s our focus. Uplift people. Most people have a lot to deal with every day. We do, too. We want to take the audience and ourselves somewhere else. Focus on good spirit instead of frustration. There’s good and bad in every day. We take every opportunity to promote fun, energy, and the joy of being with other people and sharing an experience. We want people to make the most out of this moment we’re sharing.
Staying with Louis Armstrong for a moment, Village Voice magazine said that The Soul Rebels were “The missing link between Louis Armstrong and Public Enemy.” Is that still valid?
It’s deeper than that. It might have been true years ago when it was written back in the Nineties. Now we speak more toward what jazz embodies. We became more political, began speaking to Black excellence and productivity. We lean more into uplifting our people. All people. We’re really into spreading positivity, promoting positivity.
You were the first group to bring hip hop to brass band music, but then hip hop took beats as old as American Black music itself.
Like I said, we started playing as the Young Olympia Brass Band under Harold Dejan, but we grew up in the Eighties when electronic manipulation of music came in, and there was less live instrumentation. It’s a cycle, and we brought back the authentic sound of live music. People are coming back to it. They’re finding out that we’ve been doing it all along. Our mission is to combine it all. We like to expand constantly. Connect with different people. We lean toward the new. We try to reach people where they are and maybe try to bring them to where we are. We keep up. Right now, we’re exploring Artificial Intelligence. You can’t bury your head in the sand and ignore what’s happening.
You said once that brass band music and hip-hop are both street music.
Brass band music is a combination of different Caribbean sounds mixing with the European instruments, and it was something that was basically organic from the street. It was something that was supported by the streets first. And that’s kind of how hip-hop originated: guys just DJ’ing in the square.
To me, there’s three genres of music: brass band jazz, hip hop, and go-go music from the D.C. area. Commerce just gravitated toward one, but we blew up it up. We see it all from then to now. People need to be introduced to our music. They need to know the possibilities of all different genres.
What was your experience on The Big Easy Cruise?
It was beautiful. The audiences had come to hear us and knew what we were all about. The food and the ambience were great. I loved the fundraising goals. One thing that stands out is that day-to-day we miss the opportunity to be with other New Orleans musicians. You’d think we see each other all the time, but we just don’t cross paths. Even at an event like Jazz Fest, you really don’t get to hang with other players. The schedules don’t allow it. So on the cruise, we get to hang and jam with guys we hardly see. Get to sit down with them, eat breakfast with them. We even did a little recording on board. It was like a family reunion. We’ll all pull out our horns. Play together.
I’ll come back every year they invite us.
- Colin Escott © 2025
Born in England, Colin wrote the definitive biography of Hank Williams, subsequently adapted into a movie starring Tom Hiddleston. He also wrote Good Rockin’ Tonight—Sun Records and the Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll. His work has appeared in many magazines, and he has won two Grammys for historical sets. He also cowrote the hit Broadway show Million Dollar Quartet.