The Lions

Emerging from Los Angeles as both a collective and a local supergroup, the Lions formed around a common appreciation for traditional Jamaican reggae approaches and the playing of ensembles including the Skatalites, Byron Lee & the Dragonaires, and the Aggrovators. On their first album, the 2008 release Jungle Struttin’, the band delved into dub, ska, rocksteady, cumbia, and further weighty styles, later partnering with Ubiquity and Stones Throw for projects such as the 2015 album Soul Riot and the 2021 single “Cumbia Rebel,” a cumbia-reggae version of Bob Marley’s “Soul Rebel.”

The group originated near 2006 from informal jam sessions that brought together drummer Blake Colie, bassist Dave Wilder, guitarists Sergio Rios & Dan Ubick, percussionist Davey Chegwidden, keyboardist Dan Hastie, and trumpet player Todd Simon. Those same 2006 sessions produced the debut Jungle Struttin', which Ubiquity Records issued in 2008 and which featured vocals by future Fitz and the Tantrums member Noelle Scaggs, Black Shakespeare, and Deston Berry and Alex Désert of Hepcat. Although membership shifted over time, the stable core of Colie, Wilder, Ubick, Chegwidden, Désert, Berry and Shakespeare endured. The Lions signed with Stones Throw in 2013 to issue their second album This Generation and incorporated lead vocalist Malik “The Freq” Moore. One year later Tom Chasteen from L.A.'s Dub Club reworked eight tracks from the album into This Generation in Dub. The more conceptual Soul Riot appeared in 2015. Following the end of their Stones Throw contract the Lions issued two singles, the 2020 Derrick Harriott cover “The Loser” and the 2021 Bob Marley reworking “Cumbia Rebel.”