The core of the band met as youths while all participating in an after school jazz ensemble at the Richmond Ave. Community Center, in Staten Island, New York. It wasn't long before their common hunger for the rougher stripped down sounds of Soul Music brought them together for late night ferry rides into Manhattan, where they would sneak in the back door of the No Moore Club downtown to hear bands like Antibalas, The Sugarman Three, and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. It was there, in that basement hothouse packed with the only the hippest James Brown fanatics and Fela Kuti disciples, where the kernels of instrumental Afro-Soul were first sown into the fertile minds of these talented young men. Kernels which would later germinate and grow into the roots of their strong unique sound. After meeting resistance from the band director about the direction they were trying to take the music, they left the Community Center to form Los Barbudos, (spanish for "the bearded ones") a name which was 2005 trimmed to The Budos Band after one of the boys shaved. With the recruitment of a few horn players from the neighboring borough of Brooklyn, the band began to practice regularly, exploring the outer cosmic boundaries of afro-beat and soul music from the safety of their tiny concrete rehearsal space on Sand St. As they learned and grew together, their music matured, expanding and settling into a groove as deep and as broad as the Hudson Bay itself. By the time they had arranged a chance to play for a Daptone A&R man, their sound had hardened to a diamond. They were signed on the spot and scheduled to go into the studio immediately for a recording session where they would proceed to cut a full length album in the better part of three nights.

Jazz, deep funk, Afro-beat, and soul influences can be heard in the Budos Band albums, both of which are Daptone Records releases recorded at the label's own studio, Daptone's House of Soul, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Numerous other funk and soul outfits appear on the same label including: The Mighty Imperials, Sugarman 3, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, plus others.

A Staten Island-based Afro-beat, soul-jazz, and funk instrumental ensemble, the Budos Band came together at a jam session hosted by Brooklyn's Afro-beat kings, Antibalas. Specializing in horn-driven world roots funk, the band has a somewhat fluctuating lineup that includes David Guy and Andrew Greene on trumpet, Cochemea Gastelum on tenor sax, Jared Tankel on baritone sax, Daisy Sugarman on flute, Thomas Brenneck on guitar, Robert Lombardo on congas, Mike Deller on organ, Vincent Balestrino on tambourine and shekere, Daniel Foder on bass, and drummers Brian Profilio and John Carbonella, Jr. The group released the self-titled The Budos Band on Daptone Records in 2005 and followed it with The Budos Band II, also on Daptone, in 2007. After a tour, and a lengthy break during which individual members contributed to other artists' projects, the band reunited to record a third album aptly entitled The Budos Band III, which was released August of 2010.