In the summer of 2004, a band formed by recent Brother Martin High School graduates picked the perfect name—Flow Tribe.

For 13 years, the band has literally been a tribe, busting out music made to shake a tail feather to. The band’s self-described “backbone crackin’ music”—a gumbo of funk, rhythm-and-blues, rock, bounce, hip-hop and zydeco—flows directly from the players to the people. Flow Tribe has that communal, cele...