An invaluable piece of rap collective Shoreline Mafia, rapper Rob Vicious is a connoisseur of West coast trap jams. Today, Rob shares Breakthrough, his deeply personal and immersive debut mixtape.
The product of a year’s worth of tireless recording, Rob culled the project’s 13 tracks from a pool of over 100 demos, selecting the hardest-hitting and most personal of the bunch.
The resulting body of work reveals a new side of Rob Vicious, balancing outlandish flexes on tracks like the club-ready “Get A Bag” with deep introspection–he marvels at how far he’s come on “Mental Welfare,” self-medicates to escape his darkest thoughts on “Forreal,” and searches for a way forward on closing trio “Wat U Thinking,” “Angeles v Demons,” and “Overdose.”
“I was talking to my mom and explaining what I was going through,” says Rob Vicious. “She kept saying, ‘It’s alright. It’s a breakthrough’. I replayed that through my head for like three weeks. It explains everything perfectly. When you listen to this, it sounds like breaking through some shit, fighting demons, and combating pain from every angle—personal things, family, and friends. I honestly didn’t know what the fuck to do. I had to fight it, stick to the music, and talk about it. In a sense, it brought me some type of comfort.”