GET FAMILIAR: Robscure

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Even among the most packed & diverse crop of young talent the 802 has ever seen, Robscure has distinguished himself with a prolific and adventurous body of work. Today, on 10/10, he's expanding that catalog a little further with the release of /SHō/, some of his most melodic and polished songs to date.

It was time, clearly, for a rap session. Here we're touching on his obsessive love affair with the genre, his process and inspirations, and how to find your place & your path as an independent emcee.

VTHH: Your music has covered a lot of ground already, from boom bap purist stuff to really introspective and nakedly political raps. Is that a reflection of your influences in hip hop or just a matter of who you are personally? Related followup question: is it actually possible to separate those two things?

Robscure: It’s hard to separate your influences and identify if you live and breathe your art. I’m naturally introspective but I also feel responsibility to speak on issues in the world around me, or at least convey my experience in a way where it’s not all about me. I don’t want people to go into my new music thinking they already know what’s coming. And to your point, I listen to everything from boom bap to nerd rap to spiritual rap to rap that’s arguably not even rap, so that influences my worldview and subsequently my variety of subject matter and styles.

VTHH: In terms of subgenres, lyrical lineages, where did you start? What was the moment where wanting to be an emcee really clicked for you?

Robscure: My cousin showed me Lil Wayne, J Cole, and Eminem when I was probly 10. I went to the record store with my mom and bought the explicit version of Tha Carter III and we listened to it together on the ride home. Big mistake. There’s a song on there called “Pussy Monster”. My friend got me into Kanye West when 808’s & Heartbreak came out. I wrote a few parodies to some of those songs using the personas of classmates as stand-ins for Kanye and his features. I got a kick out of it cuz it made my friend laugh. That’s how I started writing.

When I hit high school it became an outlet for more personal stuff. That’s also when I started diving deeper than the mainstream, and coincidentally the same era where the mainstream took a sharp turn. Hopsin, Em, and Royce Da 5’9” inspired me to go crazy with the multi syllabic stuff. But dudes like milo and Samsa and Open Mike Eagle who do more underground nerd rap type stuff gave me the courage to talk about whatever. I remember one day of junior year clearly where I came home, sat down, and decided to make a career out of rap. Never looked back.

VTHH: You've progressed a lot over the past two years. Do you feel like you've had some epiphanies about the kind of artist you wanted to be along the way, or is it more like you've built the toolset to become the artist you were always aiming to become?

Robscure: Damn I didn’t know you’ve been following my work that long! Bars is what drew me to hip hop so my first mission was to prove I got them. I’ll always be leveling up lyrically but right now I’m focusing on developing myself as a well rounded musician. To quote you, “good songs > good verses.” I’ve never wanted to pigeon hole myself so the variety of styles has been intentional, but the progression has been organic.

The past few months I’ve been thinking harder about the type of artist I wanna be, and two major inspirations have been TOBi for his versatility as a rapper/singer and R.A.P. Ferreira (fka milo) for his sheer lyrical prowess and the risks he takes sonically and in his content. My main mission is to make music people can connect with in a positive way. But stylistically I wanna do it all, and do it all well.

VTHH: Have you ever seen Ferreira live? I always love watching boom bap heads try to grapple with how much he subverts expectations of a rap show. How important is live performance to your process these days -- are you creating mostly for headphones and speakers or do you envision the stage when you're writing, too?

Robscure: I fuckin wish. Man is a literal genius. I’ve only seen videos. I made a beat for him and wrote some verses and sent him a demo, but it appears a collab is still far off.

I try to make my mixes translate well for any sound source. When I think about creating a 3D space, that could be something to get lost in on headphones or at a show. The biggest way the thought of performing factors into my process is making sure I can rap my verses all the way through without punches. It’s kinda silly if the song sounds seamless but then you’re gasping for air when it comes time to perform it.

VTHH: I thought Earth was a wonderfully cohesive project, some of your very best work. How did that EP come together?

Robscure: I really appreciate that. I hope my new project /SHo/ outdoes it but you can be the judge. Not gonna lie, EARTH actually came together cuz my homie Conor (@seecsart on IG) who did the cover art got me into Avatar: The Last Airbender, and that planted the seed to do a series based on the four traditional elements. AIR is coming in the next couple months.

VTHH: Your production and engineering are always on point and very ambitious, very musical. Do you have a technical background yourself? Are you a studio rat?

Robscure: That means a lot cuz those are the areas I need the most work in. When I started recording I had no idea what mixing was. Instead of compression I would painstakingly automate the volume of every vocal manually… literal months of my life I’ll never get back. Thank god for SkySplitter/Zach Crawford — he mixed my first project, but since then I’ve done most of it.

My technical foundation is all thanks to my brothers Space Cap (@space_cap) and Mentalien (@mentalienx) who did most of the production and engineering on my first album Long Night | New Day. I learned a ton from them and still do, but their biggest lesson was that you can teach yourself anything with YouTube and practice, so since then it’s just been a slow and steady learning curve. Production is still new for me, I don’t really know what I’m doing but maybe that’s a good thing.

I would be a studio rat but I can’t be cuz my setup is a tricked out closet at my parents house in central VT. It’s an hour and a half away from my apartment in Winooski so when I visit I try to record a bunch of stuff in one session.

VTHH: As a relatively new young artist in a claustrophobically small state, do you think you get more attention & acceptance here in the 802 or out in the broader world that the internet connects us to?

Robscure: I’d say more on the internet cuz the online connections online usually come about through a mutual appreciation. Don’t get me wrong, the local community has been extremely supportive and I’d be nowhere without my home folks, but there’s still a lot of people I know in real life who still don’t know I really do this. Or they pretend they don’t. But a certain level of dope is hard to ignore, and that’s the chip on my shoulder I need.

VTHH: Having made the trek up I-89 to Chittenden County, what is your impression of the BTV scene right now? Do you feel welcomed or are you still on the outside looking in?

Robscure: Honestly I’ve been a lowkey hermit these past couple years and I’m not as involved in the scene as I could be, so my perspective is limited. But I think it’s really dope. You have artists putting us on the map like 99 Neighbors and David Chief, and a ton of other young artists like Rivan C, Eva Rawlings, Asah Mack, etc and myself doing their thing and making a name. There’s also a lot of dope older heads and I sense a mutual respect between the generations which is cool. Dudes like Konflik (who has a new album) and Sed-One (rest in peace to his producer, the legend JL) have always made me feel welcome. And us younger artists tend to support each other a lot.

Side note- I am making a conscious effort to get back on the scene- I have a show at Babe’s Bar in Bethel on the 23rd and I’m trying to make something happen up here too.

Justin Boland