The Sound of Breakthrough {Mobley}

Imagined Pasts and Futures

Words Abby L. Johnson | Photos Baptiste Despois

Through synth beats and narrative lyrics, Mobley’s music asks listeners: “What if?”

“Other than the fact that I love music, I’m not particularly cut out to be a musician. I’m pretty shy. I like being at home. I don’t like crowds. I don’t drink,” says Anthony Watkins II, more commonly known by stage name Mobley, with a sheepish smile. Despite this introspective admission of unsuitability, the multi-instrumentalist outwardly exudes the unmistakable demeanor of an artist. With a confident grin punctuating his careful words, this 30-something year old speaks deliberately.

Mobley moved to Austin a decade ago to do music. Like so many of his predecessors, Mobley ended up taking a slightly less-than-linear journey to full-time artist. “When I first moved here, I couldn’t get a job anywhere. Like, I couldn’t even get hired at Target, and I eventually found some work at an audio repair shop and did that for a while, which was really cool.” All things technical seem to be a second language for Mobley. As his music career started to take off, he took his self-taught programming skills on tour with him to support his art. Today, he enjoys melding the precise nature of these skills with artistry in producing for himself and fellow musicians.

About five years ago, he was able to transition to a full-time music career. Mobley’s sound is rhythmic and synth driven, drawing on pop, soul, and psych-rock conventions. His songs are durable walls of sound with irresistible melodies. Most are highly danceable but hold up to critical close reading. Lyrically, Mobley utilizes conventions and themes of speculative fiction to explore imagined pasts and futures alike. Cry Havoc!, his 2023 EP release, is a sci-fi concept record that follows the time-bending journey of fictional character Jacob Creedmoor. The accompanying music videos, or rather films, add depth and further showcase Mobley’s overarching vision. The piece begs comparison to Janelle Monae’s Metropolis saga, an epic, multi-album tale that similarly follows the journey of a time traveling android, Cindi Mayweather.

Though he has a combined collection of four EPs and song cycles under his belt, Mobley has yet to release his first proper LP. His first album is an ambitious endeavor. In addition to writing and recording the music, Mobley is writing a novel inside of which the album also exists. He notes that the intertwined tales will be a piece of “speculative or prefigurative fiction,” adding that Octavia Butler, the acclaimed sci-fi novelist, is one of his favorite writers. If his previous work is any indication of what is to come, the novel-album will be thematically ambitious with soaring emotional arcs.

Despite the admirably lofty standards of his work, Mobley doesn’t find himself crushed under the weight of self-imposed expectations. Entering parenthood altered his perspective on purpose, raising his two-year-old becoming the focal point of his life. He says, “For most of my adult life, I thought that the most important thing that I would do would be to write a song…And now, I know that’s not true. So, it takes some pressure off.”

On the Eastside
While Mobley notes that most of his work is completed alone, in 2021, he partnered with local visual artists Adrian Armstrong and Dawn Okoro on an outdoor art installation at the George Washington Carver Museum. The Austin Storybox project featured portraits of cultural leaders on the Eastside. Each portrait was paired with a soundscape that included snippets of recorded interviews with the subjects.