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."
Lawless Entertainment Magazine – www.llemag.com