Rod Wave | The Untold Story

Rapper and vocalist Rod Wave rose quickly from local up-and-comer to platinum-certified fame, adept at switching from rough to sweet in a single sentence. Ghetto Gospel, which debuted in the Top Ten Billboard 200, was the culmination of the storyteller’s prolific output of vibrant full-length albums in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, Pray 4 Love came dangerously close to the top of the chart. In 2021, SoulFly, buoyed by a couple Top 40 singles, took the top spot. In 2022, the rapper’s fourth album, Beautiful Mind, debuted at the top of the charts as well. His fifth album, Nostalgia, was released in 2023.

PTSD
At first, recording was only a hobby for Rod Wave, real name Rodarius Green, who received a computer and a microphone from his brother and father. Although he had no intention of turning it into a profession, early songs that his producer had distributed to local fans in his hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida, led to a record deal with the Universal-affiliated Alamo Records. Rod, who is still in his teen years, completed several volumes of his Hunger Games series and released several singles in only 2018 alone. The next year, he was even more active, releasing PTSD (the lone guest on which was Bay Area legend E-40), making an appearance on E-40’s “Made This Way” (his most well-known guest verse to that point), and charting Ghetto Gospel at number 10 on the Billboard 200. The later album’s debut studio full-length was enhanced by a remix of the track “Heart on Ice” starring Lil Durk and executive produced by Kevin Gates, an early inspiration.

Rod made a comeback in April 2020 with Pray 4 Love, his second studio album. The song, which featured Lil Baby, peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 chart and gave rise to the number twelve pop smash “Rags2Riches”. A few weeks after Rod’s near-fatal vehicle tragedy, a deluxe edition of Pray 4 Love came in August. The rapper/singer took inspiration from SoulFly’s arrival in March 2021. The album topped the Billboard 200 thanks to its first three songs, all of which reached the Top 40. Later that year, a non-album tune called “Forever Set in Stone” was released. The first two singles from his fourth album, 2022’s Beautiful Mind, “By Your Side” and “Cold December,” respectively, broke into the Top Ten of the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. August of that year saw the release of the LP, which became his second album to top the Billboard 200 chart.

Venus’s Diary: Seven-Day Hypothesis
Rod released the EP Jupiter’s Diary: Seven Day Theory prior to the end of 2022. Not too long after its debut, the eight-song project entered the Top Ten. The 2023 non-album single “Fight the Feeling” debuted at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Later that year, Nostalgia, his fifth album, was released.