Rod Wave: The hitmaker talks 'Nostalgia' album, keeping things 100 and having no backup plan

Love fire interviews? Look no further than the latest sit-down for Apple Music 1’s Nick and Eddie on Rap Life Radio as they chop it up with the hitmaker himself Rod Wave. It’s always a big vibe and flex when it comes to putting out audio anthems and the trio know it.

Rod Wave keeps it 100 on everything from his new music, back-up plans and grinding to the top

The interview goes strong but with time being money, it’s all about focusing on some of those key moments from the Q&A. Tap in and keep scrolling for the chop up session.

Rod Wave on Honoring His Past With His New Album ‘Nostalgia’…

I'm just growing, bro. I'm just growing. I feel like when I first came on the scene, I had a lot of pain, and just a lot of scars and stuff, and I just feel like, over the years, I done let a lot of it out and it was just therapy for me. But this album, the reason why I even named it Nostalgia is just because I always remember where I was at. Every interview I did, every person, every face I met, every song, every video I shot, I remember where I was at, how I was feeling, what I was doing. So, I just had to realize, this is nostalgia. Everything I'm putting out in the world, in the universe, I'm going to be able to look back at it and be like, "Damn, I remember that time. I remember this," you know what I'm saying? It's all special to me. So yeah, this album, I just feel different. I don't know. I'm excited about it. I'm real happy about it. I'm in a different space. I'm growing. I'm growing up in this. The world's watching me grow, you know what I'm saying? Little do they know, I'm growing mentally too. My mental expanding and stuff, so I feel real, real happy about this album, this project, you know what I'm saying?

Rod Wave on Music as Therapy and Appreciating The Journey…

The music just therapy, bro. I just went through a lot of real life stuff. A lot of stuff that I've just been going through on this journey, period, made me just appreciate the journey. It's not the destination. It's not where you're going. It's the time that you're having while you're doing it. I remember just doing little small shows with four, 500 people like, "Damn, I can't wait til I'm in arenas," and, "Damn, dog. I remember when I was like ..." you know what I'm saying? Instead of just living in that moment with the people who was around me at the time. Because none of them people around me no more. My life is totally different…it's just life, bro. So now I just want to appreciate the people who is around me, because two, three years from now, you never know, you know what I'm saying? Just going through it. I didn't have to meditate or nothing. Just being aware of your surroundings, bro, and understanding what's going on right in front of you. 

Rod Wave on Embracing Transparency in His Music…

I didn't expect it to go this far, so I was just recording and being so open. And then once people got onto it and became fans of it, I felt like I couldn't stop. So, I just kept it going. And I felt like people will attach the music and stuff with you. Like, some of this music, I've been recording for like a year. At a year, eight months ago, six months ago. So, how I was feeling six months ago, or a year ago, I might not feel right now, you feel me? So, it is kind of a burden. Like, when people see you today and they was listening to a song you made three years ago and they're like, "Damn, bruh. You sad as f**k..." I'm like, "That's not the case. This is life, bro. Life goes up and down. It's new battles, new challenges that we go through every day." You know what I'm saying? How ever many years you got on this earth, how many years you're going to live, bro, you're going to go through ups and downs and I just talk about my ups and downs. If you're really in tune with reality, you'll know that life goes up and down. So, it is kind of a burden when people who don't understand that. Like, I'm not sad. The story's just sad to you. But people try to place a label on you. Like, "You're just sad all the time." Or people will meet me and already have this narrative in their head. I be like, "You don't know me. You think you got me figured out.”

Rod Wave on Chasing His Dreams…

I feel a lot of people don't chase their dreams, bro. I'm one of the people where I'm really living in my dream. It'll be different if I was still doing what I was doing back in 2017, telling you to chase your dream and stuff, but I'm really living in my dream. This is something that I just always knew I would be doing, and I just said, "I'm going to just do it. I'm going to just go do it and I don't care… Because even in the moments when I was just opening up for artists on their tours or just doing little, small venues, I was happy with that. You know what I'm saying? I was happy in that moment. I was living my dream then. You know what I'm saying? Just living my dream and just keep chasing it and chasing it. It took me so far. It's taken me so far. You know what I'm saying? I always just tell people, "Chase your dreams," just because that's my testimony, bro. You know what I'm saying? I'm a true believer now. I've seen it with my own eyes. There's nothing you can't do. Because I done reached heights, bro, that I never could have even dreamed about. You know what I'm saying? But just as I got further and further, I just kept dreaming. I just kept dreaming. Even today, I still dream. But if you're blessed enough to have a dream, have a conscience about what you love to do and where you want to be at in life, chase it, bro. Because we all got the same fate at the end, you're going to die. You know what I'm saying? You might as well just live your life trying to chase a dream and live your best life. You know what I'm saying?

Rod Wave on Not Having a Backup Plan…

Yeah, I'm going to jump off the cliff. You got to jump off the cliff, bro. My mama used to be telling me, "You need to try to enroll in school or something while you out there on the road." I'm like, "Ma, I ain't enrolling in no school, man. What you talking about? I don't even like school. You talking about enrolling like I need to be taking a class or thinking about what's going my backup plan." I say, "Ma, if I got a backup plan, now you already wrong. You already ain't all in. I don't need no backup plan. This what I'm fixing to do. This is what I'm doing.  When I was young, it'd be like Sunday or something, I'd be like, "Ma, what we doing today? This is our life. You know what I'm saying? You got to get up and go to work tomorrow, and you going to do it Monday through Friday. Saturday, we probably going to go do something. And then Sunday, we just going to sit in the house and clean up and just do it all over, and again and again and again." I just be like, "Ma, what you do?" She just be like, "What you mean what I do? This is my life." I think that really set a fire up under me like, nah, bro. Hell nah. 10 years straight, I just watched this lady. You know what I'm saying? Just do nothing. She did for us, but she did nothing for herself.

Rod Wave on Sampling Paramore’s “Ain’t It Fun”…

Yeah, man, I even wrote them and I was like, "Man, y'all don't know what that song mean to me, man. If y'all could just clear it." I used to listen to that song every morning in 2017, just waking up. I got to go to work or go wherever I'm going, what I'm finna do today, got to get me some money. I used to listen to that song every day just because you living in the real world now. This is real life, big boy time. So getting that song clear, man. It meant a whole lot to me. Like I said, bro, everything I've been through is what made me who I am. So I just remember listening to that song and it just triggered the whole song.

Rod Wave on Drawing Inspiration From Films, Like ‘The Great Gatsby’…

My process, period, is always inspired. There's no such thing as an original thought. Everything that you thinking about, it came from somewhere. So I just watched that movie... The way I watched that movie when I was a kid, and watch it now, it makes two different... I got two different feelings from it. Now, I can see he a bachelor and he's rich and wealthy and he's throwing all these... Everybody around him so happy, but he only... I see it through different eyes now. So just watching movies and stuff like that always inspired me, because I can... If I can relate to it. I've always done that in every project or everything I put out, I try to shout out the inspiration, where I got this from or what inspired this feeling or this emotion. Or it's a lot of stuff in life that I didn't even know I was feeling until somebody else's art was brought to my attention. I'm just like, "Damn. I feel that way too. Like man, that's crazy. So there's other people who feel the way I feel." I just recycle it and…

Rod Wave on Being a True Music Fan…

That's what I be trying to get everybody in the industry to understand. I was such big fans of so many people, they don't even know that I was real supporter coming to your concerts, buying your merchant and shit. I'm a real supporter bro. If anybody I ever worked with or I reached out to or I sampled their music, I'm a real supporter of y'all. I'm not just no rapper. I'm got no team of writers around me or nothing like this. Everything that I put in my music, it is really me. It come from my heart.