school — he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University in Durham — before moving to Austin , Texas , where he honed his musical craft and what would become a solo project .
After releasing 2012 ' s Some Other Country EP , Watkins began searching for a drummer to tour with him . He found his cohort Alfredo Rios , a drummer who moved to the states in 2013 from Mexico , on Craigslist . Rios will join Mobley on the current tour , which stops in at The Milestone in Charlotte on April 24 and continues on with stops to Austin ' s renowned South by Soutwest and parts of Mexico . But aside from a touring-only drummer , you won ' t find Mobley working with others . That ' s because he ' s currently flying solo . For Fresh Lies , co-produced by Bryan Ray , he plays all the instruments on the entirety of the album . The track " Solo ," ambiguously touches on his do-it-yourself approach . But more so , in the video , fame and popularity trends are addressed . Watkins walks alone while being approached by fans , media and police who accompany him as he experiences the effects of being a celebrity . In the end , Watkins runs away from everyone . The song clearly explores the way that different needs and wants change people in the spotlight , who often feel like they ' re being pulled in different directions .
Over the course of that song , which Watkins highly recommends listening to with headphones on , he uses keyboards , synthesizers , drum machines and other instruments and devices to create a mix that blends genres like R & B , rock and electronica .
Songs like " Tell Me ," feel even more intimate with lyrics that capture the emotions behind a relationship that ' s on a downward spiral . Lyrics leave him pleading to his partner , in a quest to find out what exactly it is she wants and what he ' s got to do — or change — in order to save the relationship .
Thematically , his songs lean towards love and romantic relationships , but Watkins says love / romance is just a metaphor for shaping his songs , which actually play off his own questioning of and experiences with racism and blackness in America .
" When I started writing , I thought that these songs were love / relationship songs , but they didn ' t really resemble any relationship I ' d ever had with a woman ," says Watkins , who had an epiphany about the songs ' real meanings when the Staten Island grand jury refused to indict the
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NYPD officer caught on video in the heated case surrounding Eric Garner ' s death .
" It came out and a lot of things visualized for me at that time . I realized that what I ' d been writing about was more of my relationship with America ," says Watkins .
Like Garner , the untimely deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown subtly influenced tracks on the album . The track " Victoria ," focuses on the violence of arresting someone at a traffic stop , while " Ercolano , Michigan ," nods to the Southern Italy town , built on the volcanic material left by the eruption of Vesuvius that devastated Pompeii , and to Flint , Michigan and its ongoing water crisis .
" It points to the ways in which so called natural disasters and so called manmade disasters are really not all that different ," says Watkins .
" Swoon ," another song on the album , blends hiphop / R & B vibes with a high dosage of dub step and electronica melodies . Watkins admits that the lyrical content came unconsciously .
" I had no idea what it was about when I was writing it . I wrote it in a kind of stream of consciousness where I was just pulling words and free-associating . When I went back and listened to it once I was done , I realized the kind of themes that were inspiring me at the time ," says Watkins . " There ' s so much there to point to that metaphorical relationship that I was talking about between romance and America ."
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