Roddy Ricch Album and Breakfast Club Interview: Review

12.11.19

Roddy Ricch dropped his debut album, Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial on December 6th, and followed up with Breakfast Club interview to promote it days later. Overall, the album truly impressed me. It isn’t every album that I can listen to all the way through without skipping a few songs, let alone from an artist who just put out their first album, ever. I really think all of these songs are great and press-play worth. Fourteen songs, an intro and a skit, including five recognizable features. With the amount of success and recognition Roddy Ricch has received from so many great names in hip-hop at such a young age, I was super interested in learning how he spoke and represented himself in this interview.

The interview was decent. We learned that Roddy Ricch never believed he could create a career in hip-hop. It was his older cousins who he used to spend time with, that were always creating music and encouraging him to record with them. Isn’t music such a family thing!?

Roddy explains his relationship with Nipsey Hussle and how he has been motivated to succeed after Nip’s passing. Roddy says that Nip taught him to never let anyone else control him or his decisions. Sign yourself, and build. He says that he spoke with Nipsey daily, even before the music. Roddy also shared many stories about his relationship with Meek Mill. I didn’t realize before hand how close they were. But it makes sense, Peta was hit and their verses vibe very well together.

Overall, I wanted to see how well spoken he was and how he presented himself, with such success. The matter of the fact is, he is twenty-one years old, still extremely young and new to this fame thing. I don’t think he was a terrible speaker, but it wasn’t impressing me as I was kind of hoping and expecting. He kept bringing up him getting into trouble, and what he was used to doing in his old life, but wouldn’t elaborate. I would have to say that I do not think the misfit has been released from himself, just yet. I hope that he keeps his head on right, stays out of trouble and saves his money, like he mentions he is working on.

What I did love from this interview, was how passionate he was about his music. I personally could tell he was a hard worker, and serious about his music, when I was listening to the album and knew a song I had not previously recognized. Months before Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial dropped, I downloaded “Out The Mud” on iTunes. As I am playing through the album, I noticed that “Big Stepper” was this song. I’m going to have to go out on a limb and say that when piecing together the album and running through the tracks and their content, Roddy felt that Big Stepper was a more suiting name for the track. I was confused at first but it totally makes sense, and I have to respect that he put in so much work into the album until the moment it had its full release.

Additionally, during the interview, Roddy asked everyone in the room “what did you think about the transitions.” Everyone kind of froze up, because they weren’t sure what he was referring to. He then explained that when you listen to the album in order of the track list, as one song ends and another begins, the music all flows together. I think this another example of someone who thinks about everything as their putting a body of work together, pretty amazing. I had to listen for myself, and when you’re looking for it, you can clearly hear the transitions he is speaking of.

Picture from @roddyricch

What I really am dying to know is what happened to Antisocial, and who was the secret feature? After listening to the whole album, I was confused because I didn’t hear it, but the amount of tracks had remained the same. So, he added “Elyse’s Skit,” but removed Antisocial. I was hoping it would get address during the interview, but it did not. Maybe no one guessed it? I didn’t share my guess on his post, but I’ll share it here. My guess was D. Smoke, the winner from Netflix Rhythm and Flow. I’ve seen him get on tracks with so many big artists since he’s won, and Roddy blew up quick after “Racks in the Middle”. Roddy is from Compton, D. Smoke is from Inglewood. Old school meets new school, it just felt like a perfect fit for the both of them. And I mean, I figured it was someone that would be slightly hard to guess. Nip and Meek are already on the album, it wasn’t going to be them. I’m still dying to know, and I hope we get to hear the track some day.

Roddy was nominated for three Grammy this year, two for “Racks in the Middle”, with Nipsey Hussle, and one for “Ballin’” with DJ Mustard. Best of luck.