[3] The original members of Aswad were guitarist/vocalist Brinsley "Chaka B" Forde, drummer/vocalist Angus "Drummie Zeb" Gaye, lead guitarist/vocalist Donald "Dee" Griffiths, bassist George "Ras" Oban, and keyboardist Courtney "Khaki" Hemmings.

[4] During this early period in the band's history they were distinctly different from Jamaican reggae acts, in that they wrote songs that dealt with the issues surrounding the experiences of black youths growing-up in the UK;[4] such as "Three Babylon" and "It's Not Our Wish","Natural Progression", "Ghetto in the Sky".

The band continued making roots reggae and dub music, and in 1985, released Jah Shaka Meets Aswad in Addis Ababa Studio.

Once the band's line-up had stabilised into the trio of Forde, Gaye, and Robinson, Aswad followed a more commercial reggae style, gaining a wider audience with the New Chapter album (1981).

The band has toured extensively, playing in diverse locations from London's Royal Albert Hall and Montego Bay's Reggae Sunsplash, to gigs in West Africa, Israel and Japan.

[7] Aswad underwent their first line-up change in sixteen years in 1996, when Forde departed the band for spiritual reasons, leaving Gaye as the only founding member.

Once again, the remaining members opted not to seek to recruit a replacement musician, and thus Aswad became a duo of Gaye and Robinson.

With the exception of a brief reunion with Forde in 2009 for the Island record label's 50th-anniversary celebrations,[8] the band's line-up remained the same until Angus Gaye’s death on 2 September 2022, aged 62.