Rebelution

Rebelution emerged from Santa Barbara, California, where a circle of college music students merged their varied backgrounds through a common devotion to reggae. The band began performing locally in 2004, delivering a breezy blend of roots and rock that distinguished them from Sublime and Long Beach Dub All-Stars. Their self-titled EP appeared in 2006, followed the next year by the full-length Courage to Grow, which climbed to number four on the reggae charts and helped establish the group’s amalgam of pop-tinged reggae, breezy alt-rock, and groove-laden hip-hop.

Bright Side of Life topped the Reggae Albums chart in 2009, and the 2011 Remix EP marked an excursion into electronica. Peace of Mind arrived in 2012; later that year the band issued both Peace of Mind: Acoustic and Peace of Mind: Dub, the latter reworked by Michael Goldwasser of Easy Star All-Stars. Count Me In landed on Goldwasser’s Easy Star imprint in 2014, while Count Me In: Acoustic surfaced on the group’s own 87 label the following year. Falling Into Place, released on Easy Star in 2016, featured Jamaican singer Protoje, debuted at number 32 on the Billboard 200, and earned a Grammy nomination in 2017 after more than a decade of touring and independent fan-building. The chart-topping Live at Red Rocks appeared next, and Free Rein arrived in 2018, another number-one set that broadened the band’s palette toward lover’s rock. Don Corleon, known for work with Sean Paul and Rihanna, produced “Rise on Top,” while Winta James, previously associated with Damian Marley and Chronixx, handled the more confessional “Settle Down Easy” and “City Life.”

In 2021 Rebelution delivered its seventh studio album, In the Moment, a stylistically wide-ranging collection featuring Kabaka Pyramid, Keznamdi, Busy Signal, and American soul singer Durand Jones.