Whenever a rapper or hip-hop act emerges from the Bay Area, their artistic identity is immediately and perhaps inextricably tied to their Northern California origins. Vallejo rappers Mac Dre and E-40, for instance, may be hip-hop icons, but they will always be Bay Area-identified.

But for SOB x RBE, the young Vallejo act consisting of rappers Slimmy B, Yhung T.O., Lul G and DaBoii, the hometown ties have only seemed to complicate their sudden success.

After touring with Fairfield rapper Sage the Gemini last year, SOB x RBE burst into the mainstream as a featured act alongside rap superstar Kendrick Lamar on “Paramedic!”, the standout track from the star-studded “Black Panther” movie soundtrack released last month. They followed that up with their boisterous, aggressively fun debut album, “Gangin,” to critical acclaim. Now the group is on the road with a headlining stop Saturday, March 17, at the Fox Theater in Oakland before they join a bill in late April that has them opening for rap A-listers Post Malone and 21 Savage for a sprawling North American tour.

While the past month has constituted an explosion for SOB x RBE, who really only formed in 2016, the group speaks of the new fame and the Vallejo identity in equivocal terms.

“It’s a lot of hating. We get love, too, but more hate than love from our city,” reveals Slimmy B, 22. “There are a lot of people in Vallejo that don’t want to see us succeed. In our age group, (people) don’t want to see us win because they want to be in our shoes.”

The group can’t entirely feel the shift of their success — this week’s show will be their first performance since their album dropped on Feb. 23. But in Vallejo, the sudden exposure for SOB x RBE (an acronym combining two of their previous group names, “Strictly Only Brothers” and “Real Boi Entertainment”) has only made them magnified targets.

Speaking over the phone, they describe where they’re currently residing as “undisclosed locations” in the Bay Area. Slimmy B says he loves his city, “but staying in Vallejo, there are only two options: that’s really dying or going to jail. Because everybody knows us.”

Slimmy B is alluding to a sort of bleak, crabs-in-a-bucket reality that is rendered in glimpses on “Gangin.” On the most ebullient tracks, those details might be overlooked in the silky voice of Yhung T.O.’s infectious hooks, or as a form of flexing from the brash Slimmy B or DaBoii, whose bars often come out like the stinging, rapid-fire release of a wound-up rubber band. But in brief moments, tortured reflections peek through. On the song “God,” Slimmy B raps: “Tryna be a thug, thinks it’s fun if you want to/ N—s dyin’ everyday, who the f— this s— fun to?”

“That’s what we live,” Lul G, 19, says matter-of-factly. “That’s what we’re going to write about, period, because that’s just our lifestyle. That’s where we came from.”

None of this comes off as posturing for the young rap crew. Their swagger — more subdued over the phone but loud and lively on their new tracks — seems specifically bolstered by an awareness of the social realities they face, and are overcoming.

“It’s 2018, and n—s are still going through struggles and poverty in America,” Yhung T.O. says. With “Gangin” serving as their introduction to most listeners, he adds, “I want them to understand that we’re young black males coming from the ghetto, coming from the bay, where most people don’t make it out. And we’re coming and we’re taking over.”

There are models to manage the tricky tension between sudden fame and their local roots, whether in Sage the Gemini or E-40, the Bay Area’s de facto hip-hop godfather who met them in New York last year and provided advice.

As for working in the studio with Lamar, the “laid-back” rapper told them simply, “Keep working and stay humble.”

Lamar, now his generation’s most touted rap visionary, similarly leaped to fame out of a violent Compton, a journey he chronicled on his breakout masterpiece, “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City.” His relatable origins make his trajectory one that SOB x RBE could project themselves in, even if they’re just beginning to push beyond Vallejo fame.

“It’s a small city,” Lul G says of their hometown. “But we’re trying to be identified across the world.”

Brandon Yu is a Bay Area freelance writer.

SOB x RBE: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 17. $35. The Fox Theater, Oakland. (510) 302-2250. http://thefoxoakland.com

Listen to “Paramedic!” (explicit) featured on the “Black Panther” soundtrack: https://youtu.be/W2_A89qTgwM