VICE Spotlight: Mog.Y

25-year-old Melbourne rapper Mog.y has “a Mac Miller vibe”. At least that’s what publications’ regularly say.

I mean, yeah, I see it. They’re both well-dressed without being over the top, they’re both white dudes coming up in the game, they both seem pretty chill. I’m sure in the past every guy making some type of easy-listening rap-adjacent music has been compared to Miller in some way. But not everyone lives up to that parallel.

In Mog.Y’s case, though, I’m thinking it’s true.

Aside from looks or general vibe, my impression is that the comparison comes through the way their music moves. It's the devastation and jubilance that simultaneously hits you when listening to both Mog.y and Miller’s tracks. It’s a hard feeling to instil in listeners, which usually involves creating a song that leaves you in a bittersweet melancholy while at the same time being impossibly upbeat. 

But Mog.Y differs from Miller with his undeniably unique tone of voice. You’d be hard-pressed to find an artist with vocals similar to his: a half-rap, half-sung (slight-nasal) gravel phonation. 

“I have always been known for my iconic rasp, and I have always stayed true to my own lane, using my voice like an instrument. And now, because of it, my sound is a fusion of musical influence,” Mog.Y tells VICE.

“I have taken from artists ranging from Tom Waits to Suga Free, and the result is Mog.Y, my own authentic sound grown from soil rich with hours of listening.”

Mog.Y originated as a “diehard hip-hop head” and through years of discovery and innovation – alongside collaborations with Huskii, POSSESHOT, Shadow and Thundamentals’ Jeswon – his music, while clinging onto the coattails of classic rap, has fused itself with other subgenres including R&B and neo soul.

He creates songs that steer away from a landscape of rap where, at its origins, was steeped in ultra-masculinity and stereotypical lyricism. Instead, his music isn’t afraid to be vulnerable. It intersects at a place where he can be “infallible” but also “be human”. 

“I like to speak to people. I spent a lot of my formative years refining and carefully selecting my internal dialogue; what I wanted to hear in my own head as I worked to understand life, myself and the people around me,” Mog.Y says.

“Now that I can speak this through music, If I can tell stories, share experiences and help somebody else grow and refine their own internal dialogue, even if they only take one thing from my music, to be a part of that fabric is an honour.”

A self-confessed distraction throughout his life – in highschool, with teachers, with friends – one thing that defines Mog.Y’s outlook is what role distraction plays in every facet of existence. Distraction, for him, means a guiding compass through intense emotion, which now is the throughline of his music. 

“As I have become more certain of myself and how I want the world to know and hear me, I am ready for my music to become this distraction,” he says.

“I want people to start their day with my music, scream to it when they’re banging down the freeway after taking a big W, listen to it on the way to a grind that they are trying to switch up, or listen when they're on a walk, to breathe for a moment and feel like everything is going to unfold as it should and that their goals are close and within reach - because this is what music has done for me.”

Follow VICE Spotlight on Spotify for a weekly rotation of some of Australia’s best upcoming artists. This week: dust, Vv Pete, Srirachi, Scan00, Sus1er, Baby Prince, MUNGMUNG, Jimmy Harwood, Ruby-Sofia + more.

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