DaBoii is trying to get his weight up. In a mall along the Northern California coast, outside of a GNC nutrition store, the 20-year-old rapper inserts quarters into a scale and steps on: 138 pounds. He stares down at the number, shaking his head, his long frame, elevated by a tall mane of hair, made even taller by the added height of the scale.

The night before, DaBoii’s bandmate Yhung T.O had handed down a cutting but friendly roast — “Boy, you got an elementary school chest” — and now the tone of the crew of childhood friends and artists has turned to earnest instruction: eat hearty meals and hit some push-ups, they advise. With this in mind, DaBoii steps into the GNC to examine his options, immediately grabbing a tub of protein powder the size of his head. When an employee tells him the large tub amounts to a week’s worth of supply and will only add one or two pounds to his weight in that time, he stares in disbelief. “Fuck all that,” he says, setting the tub down on the counter and striding out the door.

The mall doesn’t have many stores worth visiting; save for a Macy’s, it’s the sort of off-brand collection of chains one finds in an out-of-the-way suburb. The scale outside the GNC, then, becomes a main attraction, as SOB X RBE and their extended crew place bets on each other’s weights. The scene would look like a regular group of friends got dropped off at the mall to entertain themselves for a few hours when there was nothing better to do, if not for the fans intermittently popping out of nearby stores to pose for pictures with the rappers. By the time the rest of the group splits off to explore other stores, DaBoii is already in a booth at Chili’s, where he orders a well-done steak and mashed potatoes.

DaBoii, Yhung T.O, Slimmy B, and Lul G, the four members of Vallejo rap group SOB X RBE, are in this part of California, just outside the seaside college town of Santa Cruz, as part of a series of headlining West Coast dates, a few stops before they head out on a big North American tour opening up for Post Malone and 21 Savage. Over the next four nights, they’ll perform for two sold-out crowds in Santa Cruz, then drive to Sacramento for two more sold-out shows. For the Bay Area natives, the mini-tour is a victory lap of familiar territory, a reminder of how far they’ve come in such a short time and of how far they still have left to go.

