DOBBY
MARSHMALLOW
Album · Hip-Hop · 2026 · ABC Music
“This album is very much a therapy album,” DOBBY tells Apple Music. “It helps me realize a lot of things that I probably would have taken a lifetime to really understand.”
To get to that point, the artist born Rhyan Clapham had to first create this concept album in which he goes back in time to confront and save his inner child. “I was a very energetic and curious kid, and I was super passionate about hip-hop music,” says the proud Murrawarri and Ngemba rapper, drummer, composer, and producer. “Somewhere along the way I started doubting myself, and I kind of gave up. And I had this 14-track album that I’d finished, but I never released. MARSHMALLOW is about me going back in time to save me from self-sabotaging.”
That unreleased album was called The Royal Flame and is referenced throughout MARSHMALLOW, a title inspired by the Stanford marshmallow experiment, ’60s research that explored the benefits of delayed gratification. Here DOBBY talks through each track on the intricately constructed album.
“The Experiment”
“The album starts with the Stuff You Should Know podcast. Charles ‘Chuck’ Bryant is outlining this idea of willpower. Conceptwise it’s in this present time in 2026 where I’ve lost myself. And I’m trying to find what helps me tick, because we lose our inner child as we get older.”
“Good For Nothing”
“I’m picking apart all these self-criticisms that I picked up as a child. All the times I felt like I was good for nothing. Criticisms against being an artist. Criticisms against being Aboriginal. I talk about my mum coming to this country from the Philippines in 1985 and the racism she had to endure, and how that rubs off on me.”
“STREAM”
“We take you back to 2009, when I am this young, fearless kid who is so fixated on trying to be the best rapper. He’s young, ferocious, braggadocio DOBBY.”
“2009”
“I’m detailing a moment where I completely forget my lyrics in a school assembly and I get bullied and harassed afterwards. Everyone you hear on that track is real. Those are my teachers, all my friends from school. This is set in 2009, and setting up that seed of where the self-doubt and criticism began.”
“Talk 2 Me”
“A letter to my younger self. I guess it’s just me feeling very lost and trying to connect with my younger child.”
“Marshmallow”
“‘Marshmallow’ is the track where I go back in time to confront myself. I’m heading back into school and reliving that same traumatic experience in 2009, and we catch each other and a confrontation ensues.”
“Lessons feat. DOBBY”
“This is the [confrontation]. I needed to figure out what older DOBBY was angry at younger Rhyan for. There’s a personal regret from DOBBY. There is the weight of the world politically and environmentally. All of the things that he is just laying on Rhyan thick. And Rhyan, being a young, innocent kid, wants to fight back and teach him a lesson.”
“Bright Lights”
“‘Lessons’ is the end of our story arc. Young Rhyan and older DOBBY go head to head in a rap battle, and they come out fused. And so this is me now in the second half of the album spilling out the lessons that we learn as we meld together. It’s me reconnecting, remembering what it was like to dream.”
“OLDER”
“‘OLDER’ is the realization that nothing lasts forever. I guess existentialism with a positive twist. All we have is each other and all we have is our lives. And it’s important to realize that we are still breathing and we still have the control and passion and energy within us.”
“≠ (Free Your Mind)”
“Yet another lesson as [I] meld together with [my] inner child. ‘≠ (Free Your Mind)’ represents success not being equal to self-worth. Coming back to what we do things for—are we making music out of love? Are we making music for love? It’s reminding myself what I do this for.”
“People” (feat. Dyagula)
“This is now leading from the realization of who I am as a person to the realization that we are all people. It is a story multiplied by eight billion people. We all have so much strength within us, and that’s what I wanted to represent in the last verse.”
“Fight (Kim’s Song)”
“I would be remiss if I were going back into my childhood and not mentioning the strength and resilience and warrior spirit that I learned from my teacher, Kim Dalton. She was my taekwondo teacher as a kid. She was about to compete for the Athens Olympics in 2004, but was diagnosed with cancer of the adrenal cortex and passed away in 2005. She was the first person to call me DOBBY. I owe so much to her.”
“Sabotage!” (feat. Josh Pyke)
“‘Sabotage!’ represents the self-sabotage that we carry out because of our self-doubts that we learn from our youth. And it takes a fight within us to be able to identify and know when we are self-sabotaging. There’s a lot of self-realization in this track.”
“BOUNDARIES”
“These lessons, as I meld with my inner child, are now applied to real life stories. I can now identify how to speak out about lost, broken friendships, fallouts. And overcoming my people pleasing, learning how to assert myself, and to stand in confidence in my identity and the artist that I am.”
“80,000 Storeys” (feat. Beckah Amani)
“I wanted to challenge the notion of linear time being from left to right, but standing in time from the ground up. That’s why we’re on the 80,000th storey. And we are just the latest people to be here, but we’re on ancient land. And there’s a lot of gratitude in this song and a lot of spirit. That’s where I wanted to finish the story.”
To get to that point, the artist born Rhyan Clapham had to first create this concept album in which he goes back in time to confront and save his inner child. “I was a very energetic and curious kid, and I was super passionate about hip-hop music,” says the proud Murrawarri and Ngemba rapper, drummer, composer, and producer. “Somewhere along the way I started doubting myself, and I kind of gave up. And I had this 14-track album that I’d finished, but I never released. MARSHMALLOW is about me going back in time to save me from self-sabotaging.”
That unreleased album was called The Royal Flame and is referenced throughout MARSHMALLOW, a title inspired by the Stanford marshmallow experiment, ’60s research that explored the benefits of delayed gratification. Here DOBBY talks through each track on the intricately constructed album.
“The Experiment”
“The album starts with the Stuff You Should Know podcast. Charles ‘Chuck’ Bryant is outlining this idea of willpower. Conceptwise it’s in this present time in 2026 where I’ve lost myself. And I’m trying to find what helps me tick, because we lose our inner child as we get older.”
“Good For Nothing”
“I’m picking apart all these self-criticisms that I picked up as a child. All the times I felt like I was good for nothing. Criticisms against being an artist. Criticisms against being Aboriginal. I talk about my mum coming to this country from the Philippines in 1985 and the racism she had to endure, and how that rubs off on me.”
“STREAM”
“We take you back to 2009, when I am this young, fearless kid who is so fixated on trying to be the best rapper. He’s young, ferocious, braggadocio DOBBY.”
“2009”
“I’m detailing a moment where I completely forget my lyrics in a school assembly and I get bullied and harassed afterwards. Everyone you hear on that track is real. Those are my teachers, all my friends from school. This is set in 2009, and setting up that seed of where the self-doubt and criticism began.”
“Talk 2 Me”
“A letter to my younger self. I guess it’s just me feeling very lost and trying to connect with my younger child.”
“Marshmallow”
“‘Marshmallow’ is the track where I go back in time to confront myself. I’m heading back into school and reliving that same traumatic experience in 2009, and we catch each other and a confrontation ensues.”
“Lessons feat. DOBBY”
“This is the [confrontation]. I needed to figure out what older DOBBY was angry at younger Rhyan for. There’s a personal regret from DOBBY. There is the weight of the world politically and environmentally. All of the things that he is just laying on Rhyan thick. And Rhyan, being a young, innocent kid, wants to fight back and teach him a lesson.”
“Bright Lights”
“‘Lessons’ is the end of our story arc. Young Rhyan and older DOBBY go head to head in a rap battle, and they come out fused. And so this is me now in the second half of the album spilling out the lessons that we learn as we meld together. It’s me reconnecting, remembering what it was like to dream.”
“OLDER”
“‘OLDER’ is the realization that nothing lasts forever. I guess existentialism with a positive twist. All we have is each other and all we have is our lives. And it’s important to realize that we are still breathing and we still have the control and passion and energy within us.”
“≠ (Free Your Mind)”
“Yet another lesson as [I] meld together with [my] inner child. ‘≠ (Free Your Mind)’ represents success not being equal to self-worth. Coming back to what we do things for—are we making music out of love? Are we making music for love? It’s reminding myself what I do this for.”
“People” (feat. Dyagula)
“This is now leading from the realization of who I am as a person to the realization that we are all people. It is a story multiplied by eight billion people. We all have so much strength within us, and that’s what I wanted to represent in the last verse.”
“Fight (Kim’s Song)”
“I would be remiss if I were going back into my childhood and not mentioning the strength and resilience and warrior spirit that I learned from my teacher, Kim Dalton. She was my taekwondo teacher as a kid. She was about to compete for the Athens Olympics in 2004, but was diagnosed with cancer of the adrenal cortex and passed away in 2005. She was the first person to call me DOBBY. I owe so much to her.”
“Sabotage!” (feat. Josh Pyke)
“‘Sabotage!’ represents the self-sabotage that we carry out because of our self-doubts that we learn from our youth. And it takes a fight within us to be able to identify and know when we are self-sabotaging. There’s a lot of self-realization in this track.”
“BOUNDARIES”
“These lessons, as I meld with my inner child, are now applied to real life stories. I can now identify how to speak out about lost, broken friendships, fallouts. And overcoming my people pleasing, learning how to assert myself, and to stand in confidence in my identity and the artist that I am.”
“80,000 Storeys” (feat. Beckah Amani)
“I wanted to challenge the notion of linear time being from left to right, but standing in time from the ground up. That’s why we’re on the 80,000th storey. And we are just the latest people to be here, but we’re on ancient land. And there’s a lot of gratitude in this song and a lot of spirit. That’s where I wanted to finish the story.”
MARSHMALLOW
DOBBY
“This album is very much a therapy album,” DOBBY tells Apple Music. “It helps me realize a lot of things that I probably would have taken a lifetime to really understand.”
To get to that point, the artist born Rhyan Clapham had to first create this concept album in which he goes back in time to confront and save his inner child. “I was a very energetic and curious kid, and I was super passionate about hip-hop music,” says the proud Murrawarri and Ngemba rapper, drummer, composer, and producer. “Somewhere along the way I started doubting myself, and I kind of gave up. And I had this 14-track album that I’d finished, but I never released. MARSHMALLOW is about me going back in time to save me from self-sabotaging.”
That unreleased album was called The Royal Flame and is referenced throughout MARSHMALLOW, a title inspired by the Stanford marshmallow experiment, ’60s research that explored the benefits of delayed gratification. Here DOBBY talks through each track on the intricately constructed album.
“The Experiment”
“The album starts with the Stuff You Should Know podcast. Charles ‘Chuck’ Bryant is outlining this idea of willpower. Conceptwise it’s in this present time in 2026 where I’ve lost myself. And I’m trying to find what helps me tick, because we lose our inner child as we get older.”
“Good For Nothing”
“I’m picking apart all these self-criticisms that I picked up as a child. All the times I felt like I was good for nothing. Criticisms against being an artist. Criticisms against being Aboriginal. I talk about my mum coming to this country from the Philippines in 1985 and the racism she had to endure, and how that rubs off on me.”
“STREAM”
“We take you back to 2009, when I am this young, fearless kid who is so fixated on trying to be the best rapper. He’s young, ferocious, braggadocio DOBBY.”
“2009”
“I’m detailing a moment where I completely forget my lyrics in a school assembly and I get bullied and harassed afterwards. Everyone you hear on that track is real. Those are my teachers, all my friends from school. This is set in 2009, and setting up that seed of where the self-doubt and criticism began.”
“Talk 2 Me”
“A letter to my younger self. I guess it’s just me feeling very lost and trying to connect with my younger child.”
“Marshmallow”
“‘Marshmallow’ is the track where I go back in time to confront myself. I’m heading back into school and reliving that same traumatic experience in 2009, and we catch each other and a confrontation ensues.”
“Lessons feat. DOBBY”
“This is the [confrontation]. I needed to figure out what older DOBBY was angry at younger Rhyan for. There’s a personal regret from DOBBY. There is the weight of the world politically and environmentally. All of the things that he is just laying on Rhyan thick. And Rhyan, being a young, innocent kid, wants to fight back and teach him a lesson.”
“Bright Lights”
“‘Lessons’ is the end of our story arc. Young Rhyan and older DOBBY go head to head in a rap battle, and they come out fused. And so this is me now in the second half of the album spilling out the lessons that we learn as we meld together. It’s me reconnecting, remembering what it was like to dream.”
“OLDER”
“‘OLDER’ is the realization that nothing lasts forever. I guess existentialism with a positive twist. All we have is each other and all we have is our lives. And it’s important to realize that we are still breathing and we still have the control and passion and energy within us.”
“≠ (Free Your Mind)”
“Yet another lesson as [I] meld together with [my] inner child. ‘≠ (Free Your Mind)’ represents success not being equal to self-worth. Coming back to what we do things for—are we making music out of love? Are we making music for love? It’s reminding myself what I do this for.”
“People” (feat. Dyagula)
“This is now leading from the realization of who I am as a person to the realization that we are all people. It is a story multiplied by eight billion people. We all have so much strength within us, and that’s what I wanted to represent in the last verse.”
“Fight (Kim’s Song)”
“I would be remiss if I were going back into my childhood and not mentioning the strength and resilience and warrior spirit that I learned from my teacher, Kim Dalton. She was my taekwondo teacher as a kid. She was about to compete for the Athens Olympics in 2004, but was diagnosed with cancer of the adrenal cortex and passed away in 2005. She was the first person to call me DOBBY. I owe so much to her.”
“Sabotage!” (feat. Josh Pyke)
“‘Sabotage!’ represents the self-sabotage that we carry out because of our self-doubts that we learn from our youth. And it takes a fight within us to be able to identify and know when we are self-sabotaging. There’s a lot of self-realization in this track.”
“BOUNDARIES”
“These lessons, as I meld with my inner child, are now applied to real life stories. I can now identify how to speak out about lost, broken friendships, fallouts. And overcoming my people pleasing, learning how to assert myself, and to stand in confidence in my identity and the artist that I am.”
“80,000 Storeys” (feat. Beckah Amani)
“I wanted to challenge the notion of linear time being from left to right, but standing in time from the ground up. That’s why we’re on the 80,000th storey. And we are just the latest people to be here, but we’re on ancient land. And there’s a lot of gratitude in this song and a lot of spirit. That’s where I wanted to finish the story.”
To get to that point, the artist born Rhyan Clapham had to first create this concept album in which he goes back in time to confront and save his inner child. “I was a very energetic and curious kid, and I was super passionate about hip-hop music,” says the proud Murrawarri and Ngemba rapper, drummer, composer, and producer. “Somewhere along the way I started doubting myself, and I kind of gave up. And I had this 14-track album that I’d finished, but I never released. MARSHMALLOW is about me going back in time to save me from self-sabotaging.”
That unreleased album was called The Royal Flame and is referenced throughout MARSHMALLOW, a title inspired by the Stanford marshmallow experiment, ’60s research that explored the benefits of delayed gratification. Here DOBBY talks through each track on the intricately constructed album.
“The Experiment”
“The album starts with the Stuff You Should Know podcast. Charles ‘Chuck’ Bryant is outlining this idea of willpower. Conceptwise it’s in this present time in 2026 where I’ve lost myself. And I’m trying to find what helps me tick, because we lose our inner child as we get older.”
“Good For Nothing”
“I’m picking apart all these self-criticisms that I picked up as a child. All the times I felt like I was good for nothing. Criticisms against being an artist. Criticisms against being Aboriginal. I talk about my mum coming to this country from the Philippines in 1985 and the racism she had to endure, and how that rubs off on me.”
“STREAM”
“We take you back to 2009, when I am this young, fearless kid who is so fixated on trying to be the best rapper. He’s young, ferocious, braggadocio DOBBY.”
“2009”
“I’m detailing a moment where I completely forget my lyrics in a school assembly and I get bullied and harassed afterwards. Everyone you hear on that track is real. Those are my teachers, all my friends from school. This is set in 2009, and setting up that seed of where the self-doubt and criticism began.”
“Talk 2 Me”
“A letter to my younger self. I guess it’s just me feeling very lost and trying to connect with my younger child.”
“Marshmallow”
“‘Marshmallow’ is the track where I go back in time to confront myself. I’m heading back into school and reliving that same traumatic experience in 2009, and we catch each other and a confrontation ensues.”
“Lessons feat. DOBBY”
“This is the [confrontation]. I needed to figure out what older DOBBY was angry at younger Rhyan for. There’s a personal regret from DOBBY. There is the weight of the world politically and environmentally. All of the things that he is just laying on Rhyan thick. And Rhyan, being a young, innocent kid, wants to fight back and teach him a lesson.”
“Bright Lights”
“‘Lessons’ is the end of our story arc. Young Rhyan and older DOBBY go head to head in a rap battle, and they come out fused. And so this is me now in the second half of the album spilling out the lessons that we learn as we meld together. It’s me reconnecting, remembering what it was like to dream.”
“OLDER”
“‘OLDER’ is the realization that nothing lasts forever. I guess existentialism with a positive twist. All we have is each other and all we have is our lives. And it’s important to realize that we are still breathing and we still have the control and passion and energy within us.”
“≠ (Free Your Mind)”
“Yet another lesson as [I] meld together with [my] inner child. ‘≠ (Free Your Mind)’ represents success not being equal to self-worth. Coming back to what we do things for—are we making music out of love? Are we making music for love? It’s reminding myself what I do this for.”
“People” (feat. Dyagula)
“This is now leading from the realization of who I am as a person to the realization that we are all people. It is a story multiplied by eight billion people. We all have so much strength within us, and that’s what I wanted to represent in the last verse.”
“Fight (Kim’s Song)”
“I would be remiss if I were going back into my childhood and not mentioning the strength and resilience and warrior spirit that I learned from my teacher, Kim Dalton. She was my taekwondo teacher as a kid. She was about to compete for the Athens Olympics in 2004, but was diagnosed with cancer of the adrenal cortex and passed away in 2005. She was the first person to call me DOBBY. I owe so much to her.”
“Sabotage!” (feat. Josh Pyke)
“‘Sabotage!’ represents the self-sabotage that we carry out because of our self-doubts that we learn from our youth. And it takes a fight within us to be able to identify and know when we are self-sabotaging. There’s a lot of self-realization in this track.”
“BOUNDARIES”
“These lessons, as I meld with my inner child, are now applied to real life stories. I can now identify how to speak out about lost, broken friendships, fallouts. And overcoming my people pleasing, learning how to assert myself, and to stand in confidence in my identity and the artist that I am.”
“80,000 Storeys” (feat. Beckah Amani)
“I wanted to challenge the notion of linear time being from left to right, but standing in time from the ground up. That’s why we’re on the 80,000th storey. And we are just the latest people to be here, but we’re on ancient land. And there’s a lot of gratitude in this song and a lot of spirit. That’s where I wanted to finish the story.”
