Journal
“Cruisin'” Premieres October 18
Rebel Lion's AI music video for Cruisin' premieres Sunday October 18 at the AI International Film Festival in Los Angeles, after being ...
Read →Sauce That Wins Five Awards in Los Angeles
Rebel Lion AI music video for Sauce That won 3 jury awards and 2 audience awards at the AI International Music Video Festival in Los An...
Read →The Song Itself
The title track of Rebel Lion's debut is about overcoming abusive addiction. On why a Texas wildflower and the bubonic plague ended up ...
Read →Diablita and the Title Track
Araceli Linares, who records as Diablita, made the title track of Bluebonnet Plague with Rebel Lion. She wrote the melody and features ...
Read →“Midriff”
Track 2 of Bluebonnet Plague started with a crop top and a joke about a friends list. On Clay Herzing's chorus, Partee McFly's last-min...
Read →“Go Local” with Chris Conde
Track 9 features queer San Antonio rapper Chris Conde, now Brooklyn-based, formerly of the San Antonio Current. On a long working relat...
Read →You Are Saying It Wrong
Bluebonnet Plague is a play on Bubonic Plague and should be pronounced with that inflection, not the usual Texas wildflower stress. Her...
Read →Why a Lion
Rebel Lion spells Rebellion. The name comes from a second grade production of The Lion and the Mouse, a Leo's fixation, and a full lion...
Read →Rehab at 24
A San Antonio rapper on going to rehab at 24 for cocaine and alcohol, what actually helped, and why he is not going to pretend it ended...
Read →2020
Laid off in the pandemic, earning more on unemployment than he ever had working, a San Antonio musician watched his drinking and drug u...
Read →The Bowling Alley Years
Six years at a San Antonio bowling alley, working front desk and security, making beats on an iPad and turning teenage Facebook poetry ...
Read →A Diner at 2am
How a late night at a San Antonio Jim's, a reggaeton singer, Bad Vibe Studios and a Donella Drive show at Hi Tones ended in a marriage....
Read →Track 8 Is About My Wife
Track 8 on Bluebonnet Plague is about the woman Rebel Lion met outside a show in April 2015. It is also the discount code on the four-p...
Read →Sol Scents
During the pandemic Rebel Lion's wife started a candle company called Sol Scents. A name conflict and twins ended it. Candles are retur...
Read →For Clay and Wayne
Bluebonnet Plague is dedicated to two collaborators who have since passed: Clay Herzing, The Real Biggs Malone, on Midriff, and Wayne H...
Read →The Coffee Shop
Leaving a bowling alley for a San Antonio coffee shop changed everything. On Press Coffee, local coffee culture, community, and why GAM...
Read →Latte Art Throwdowns
Hosting latte art throwdowns in San Antonio with @tntsatx alongside Henry Berrios, the 2020 World Latte Art Champion, and why the city'...
Read →Cruising Kitchens and a TV Shoot
Three years at San Antonio custom build shop Cruising Kitchens: the Eat. Learn. Play. bus for Steph Curry, a MotorTrend show, and the B...
Read →Where “Sauce That” Came From
The award-winning single Sauce That started at a BBQ competition in Port Aransas, watching pitmasters tend fires all night. The real or...
Read →I Am Not a Pitmaster
A rapper who wrote a BBQ song admits he has never run a pit. On respect from outside the craft, and 2M Smokehouse winning Food Network'...
Read →I Bombed Nearly Every Time
Before rap, a San Antonio artist did stand-up comedy in his early twenties, usually wrecked, and usually badly. What bombing repeatedly...
Read →You're Invited TV
Scott Newman co-founded You're Invited TV with Bryan Powell: sketches, parodies, mockumentaries and talk shows made inside San Antonio'...
Read →Piano by Ear
No lessons, no theory: how a rapper taught himself piano by ear, learned the pentatonic scales, and built an album's worth of beats on ...
Read →I Wrote It. I Also Take the Pills.
Rebel Lion wrote an anti-pharma song and takes medication for bipolar disorder and depression. On holding a contradiction honestly inst...
Read →AI for Video, Not for Music
An independent rapper with no marketing budget explains where he draws the line on AI: five music videos and promo made for pennies, an...
Read →From Modest Mouse to Eminem
The full influence list behind Rebel Lion: Modest Mouse, Eminem, Logic, Domo Genesis, Tyler The Creator, The Mars Volta, Westside Gunn,...
Read →“Eminem Coded”
People call Rebel Lion Eminem coded. A San Antonio rapper unpacks what that phrase really means, what it flatters, what it flattens, an...
Read →Lil Dicky, Weird Al, and Funny Rap
Compared to Lil Dicky and Weird Al, and fine with it. On comedy in hip hop, why funny music gets dismissed, and winning Best Comedy and...
Read →Visceral, Cryptic, Truthful
How a San Antonio rapper approaches writing: physical over abstract, cryptic when the plain version would be a lie, and truthful even w...
Read →What Modest Mouse Taught Me
An indie rock band is the first name on this rapper's influence list. On Isaac Brock, dread, geography, and why Modest Mouse shaped a S...
Read →Chaos With a Plan
Prog rock as a rap influence. On The Mars Volta, controlled chaos, and why a music video that won Best Experimental and Best Comedy owe...
Read →Permission to Be Weird
On Tyler, The Creator as an influence: building a whole aesthetic world, refusing the assigned lane, and what that gives an independent...
Read →The One Nobody Escapes
Why Kanye West's production is an unavoidable influence on any modern rap record: sampling as emotional argument, the album as one stat...
Read →Three Lessons in Texture
Three rappers, three lessons in texture: how a record can sound like a place, how to carry a lineage without copying it, and how specif...
Read →The Independent Blueprint
What three artists taught a self-funded rapper about building a career without a traditional machine: ownership, range, and sheer work ...
Read →Ten Years, Part One: Starting
Part one of how a San Antonio rapper spent a decade making one album. On starting with no plan, no label and no deadline, and why that ...
Read →Ten Years, Part Two: The Money
Part two: what a decade of self-funding an album actually costs. Studio time, features, mixing, artwork, and why independent artists do...
Read →Ten Years, Part Three: Why So Long
Part three: the real reasons an album takes a decade. Not perfectionism exactly, but rewriting, life getting in the way, and learning t...
Read →Ten Years, Part Four: Turning 36
Part four: what it is like to be a 36-year-old up-and-coming rapper. On age in hip hop, the XXL Freshman clock, and why starting late i...
Read →Ten Years, Part Five: One Night
Part five: why a decade of work ends in a single San Antonio show with a full prosthetic lion, a film crew, and a budget published down...
Read →Is 36 Too Old to Start Rapping?
A 36-year-old San Antonio rapper on whether age actually matters in hip hop, what starting late costs, what it gives you, and why the q...
Read →10 Things a Decade Taught Me
Hard-won lessons from ten years making an independent album: announce the date, pay people, finish things, and why nobody is coming to ...
Read →Four Things That Take Their Own Time
Four symbols run through Rebel Lion's Bluebonnet Plague: a lion, a Texas wildflower, barbecue smoke and cold brew. Here is what each on...
Read →San Antonio BBQ and the Long Cook
Brisket, smoke and patience: why Texas barbecue runs through a San Antonio rap album. On low and slow as a working method, and what BBQ...
Read →Brisket and Cold Brew
Why barbecue and coffee belong together. The 4am brisket start, what to drink through a twelve-hour cook, and why cold brew beats hot c...
Read →Bluebonnet Plague, Explained
Bluebonnet Plague is the debut album from San Antonio musician Rebel Lion, out July 27, 2027. Ten years in the making. Here is what the...
Read →The Texas Bluebonnet
The bluebonnet is the Texas state flower, blooming across highways every spring. Here is the history behind it, and why a San Antonio m...
Read →What Is GAMFC Cold Brew?
GAMFC is Good Ass Mother Fucking Coffee - a 12 oz canned cold brew from musician Rebel Lion, roasted in San Antonio by Pulp Coffee. Two...
Read →Cold Brew vs Iced Coffee
Cold brew and iced coffee are not the same drink. One is brewed cold for 12+ hours, the other is hot coffee poured over ice. Here is wh...
Read →How Much Caffeine Is Actually in This?
GAMFC cold brew has 220mg of caffeine per 12 oz can. Here is how that compares to drip coffee, espresso and energy drinks, and why the ...
Read →Cold Brew, Made in San Antonio
GAMFC cold brew is roasted in San Antonio by Pulp Coffee Roasters and sold by local musician Rebel Lion. Local pickup October 24 at Ete...
Read →Local Pickup, October 24
Pick up GAMFC cold brew in person on Saturday October 24, 10am-4pm at Eternal Courage Tattoo in San Antonio. $7.77 a can, no shipping, ...
Read →Spread the Plague
Spread the Plague is a free 69-second browser game where you grow bluebonnets faster than lawnmowers can cut them. No download, no sign...
Read →Rebel Lion Launches GAMFC Canned Cold Brew
San Antonio musician Rebel Lion releases GAMFC canned cold brew, roasted by Pulp Coffee Roasters. 12 oz, 220mg caffeine, two ingredient...
Read →Rebel Lion Funds a One-Night-Only Show
Rebel Lion is raising $72,727 for a single San Antonio performance with full prosthetics, production and film crew, with the complete b...
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