Rob49 Is the New Orleans Project Baby All Your Favorite Rappers Co-Sign

“If I ever made music with somebody, we like each other in real life—it’s not one of those,” Rob49 says, calling in from Atlanta. The only thing more impressive than securing a feature on Utopia, one of the most highly anticipated rap albums in the last five years, is having Travis Scott genuinely fuck with you in real life.

So much so that Travis invited him to Rome for the Utopia performance, but he couldn’t go because of a lost passport.

Despite not making the trip, you could hear Rob49’s booming voice full of rowdy energy when Travis performed “Topia Twins.” His verse wasn’t sent in or finessed via label bureaucracy but was a byproduct of his authenticity, recorded after a night of partying with La Flame.

The guiding principle of only working with artists he likes on a personal level has led to his co-signs stacking up faster than Donald Trump’s indictments.

The deluxe version of his album 4GOD II, released at the beginning of August, has features that read like the Rap Caviar playlist on Spotify. But his appearance on albums this year alone—Lil Durk’s Almost Healed, Trippie Redd’s Mansion Musik, French Montana, and DJ Drama’s Coke Boys 6—proves that the love goes both ways.

There’s a raw grittiness to Rob49’s delivery that makes his music compelling and distinctive. It’s in-your-face energy powered by the same strength that got him out the trenches.

The “4-9” in his name stands for the 4th and 9th wards of New Orleans, where he grew up. An area with housing projects and violence, not fit for an outsider to take a walk in. That authenticity in his raps is what caught the attention of Birdman and Young Thug early in his career (they both tried to sign him), and the rest of the world is finally catching up.

Below, he chats about how “Topia Twins” came to be, the Utopia song he decided to pass on, why 4GOD II is his best project yet, and his three principles for a good collaboration.

How did your feature on Travis Scott’s Utopia for the song “Topia Twins” come together?

We was at the club the night before, and we ain’t never wanna go home, just partying hard. [Travis] don’t like going home, he ain’t want me to leave, so we stayed out all night. The next day they called me like, ‘Pull up to the office,’ I pulled up to the office. [Travis was] like, ‘You ready to go make some music?’ I’m like ‘wtf, hell yeah, let’s go.’

We ended up going [to the studio] he played me the stuff with him and Pharrell, him and The Weeknd, that song they got with Bad Bunny. He was telling me I could get on any one of those, but then he played “Topia Twins,” and I was like ‘Let’s do our own shit.’

Why did you pass on the “K-POP” song with The Weeknd and Bad Bunny?

The reason I didn’t get on The Weeknd one [is] because I’m really a Weeknd fan [and] I want my first song with The Weeknd to be just me. Not finessing a feature, I don’t do that.

When did you find out that “Topia Twins” would be on Utopia?

[Travis] told me, I had saw him at a strip club in Miami. He was like, ‘Rob we got a hit!’ I’m like ‘For real?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you gotta come hear it, it’s going on the album.’ So he had been told me I just was always skeptical [until it came out.]

You posted a TikTok that you said Travis invited you to Rome, but you didn’t have your passport.

Yea, man, I’m sick about that, though. They think I don’t got a passport, like I’m a hood n***a with nothing going on. Like nah, I have a passport I just lost it at Rolling Loud in Toronto.

A lot of people probably don’t know you performed with Travis at TAO LA last year.

Oh yeah, I ain’t going lie, I was kind of like, cause my song was just picking up, but he knew it like crazy, so he telling me go crazy with it, but they not knowing it in the crowd. I’m kind of shy, like I don’t even want to rap my shit, but he’s telling me right beside, so I just did it.

Did you know Travis before that, or was that the first time you met?

That was our first time meeting, we met that night. We didn’t meet at the club, though we met at the office, and we was chilling, and then we winded up being like, ‘Let’s go to the club.’ It was just a natural vibe, we were just vibing hard.

Toosii recently brought you out during his concert, when you do that type of stuff now, is it less unfamiliar? Do you feel more confident about going out as a special guest?

I gotta work on this, but my confidence is not there—I gotta get it there. When they bringing me out, I’m like, [kisses teeth] I’m big enough to come out for this shit?

You’ve collaborated with everyone from Trippie Redd and Lil Durk to Roddy Ricch and Lil Baby, can you name 3 things that make for a good collaboration?

Good environment, first of all, good personality, the both of y’all, and just showing genuine love—that’s the three things. I feel like no matter if the music good or bad, as long as they got those, the song will come out hard because everybody happy, you know.

Is organic connection important to you when working with other artists?

If I’m making music with somebody [or] if I ever made music with somebody, we like each other in real life. I’m not even going to put a song out with somebody I don’t like for real.

Of the 8 new songs on the 4GOD II deluxe album, is there one that stands out to you as a favorite and why?

Probably “ILY,” just because it means the most to me.

Was a sample used in the intro for “ILY?

It wasn’t a sample, it was [the artist] Fridayy on the vocals. I was going through a lot at the time, and I knew I wanted it on [the album], so I put it first.

If “ILY” was a tough song to make, how does it feel to listen to that song now, knowing what you were going through at the time?

[It takes me back to that place], but I enjoy it though. I realize that when I’m going through things, I look back at it, and most of the time, even when I was going through it, I was telling myself like, 4-5 months, you ain’t even going be worrying about this.

Your On The Radar freestyle reminds me of “ILY.” You take a sample from another genre and make it your own. With songs like that, what comes first, the beat or the lyrics?

I had got the beat first, and then I thought about the lyrics. I had been wrote that song, I wrote that song before I dropped any music, before I was rapping for real. Then I performed it on [On The Radar] so that just let you know how advanced I was coming out, soon as I came out the gate, I already had that song.

You previously said 4GOD II is one of the first projects you really like. What’s the most significant difference between this album and your debut project, 4our the World?

It’s so much elevation you can’t even compare those two, you know what I’m saying? My lyrics, my cadence, everything—I got a lot to work with now. At first, I was trying to find everything—now I know some stuff I’m good at and some stuff I’m bad at.