Mobley was born in Massachusetts in 1961. He began playing African drums at the age of seven, and studied for 10 years under Nigerian master drummer
Babatunde Olatunji at the
Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts in
Boston, Massachusetts. In 1977, he studied under Senegalese master drummer
Ibrahim Camara (former drummer for the National Ballet of Senegal) while a member of the Bokan-Deye Dance Company. He was a cast member in the
PBS Television show
ZOOM in 1973. After leaving
ZOOM he worked with The Art of Black Dance and Music, and toured with a
reggae band. He performed in the musical
Dancing in the Street and studied music and education at the University of Massachusetts. Mobley studied and performed in
Surinam, South America,
Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the West Indies, from 1979 to 1981. He continued his studies in
Senegal and
Gambia in 1982. In 1987 and 1992, he taught and performed West African drumming and dancing in Japan, where he participated in a cultural exchange program on
Sado Island, the home of percussion group Kodo. In Boston, Massachusetts, he taught at community centers, conducted school tours with the Art of Black Dance and Music, and conducted workshops at
Berklee College of Music. He also worked as musical director at Paige Academy, a private school in
Roxbury, Massachusetts. He founded and recorded six CDs with the group Leon Mobley and Da Lion. Mobley was selected by the U.S. State Department to be an Art Envoy for an Arts Exchange Program, and he traveled and presented workshops and performances in Africa and South America. He has performed and lectured throughout the US, toured Germany, Italy, and Israel, produced recordings, conducted clinics, and performed with his group Da Lion. He moved to
Los Angeles in 1986 and continued teaching, conducting weekly classes at
UCLA, Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theater, Parks and Recreation, and the Los Angeles High School for the Arts on the campus of Cal State (Los Angeles). He was invited to
South Africa in 1991 to perform with returning exiles
Letta Mbulu,
Caiphus Semenya, and
Hugh Masekela. He has toured the world as a drummer/percussionist with Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals (1993–present). He worked with Damian Marley and Nas on a collaborative album, titled
Distant Relatives, in 2010. He has recorded and performed with Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Mick Jagger and Madonna. Mobley is the founder and musical and artistic director of Da Lion and Djimbe West African Drummers and Dancers, a group he formed in 1986 in California to present authentic West African-American dance and music to North American audiences. ==References==