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.

Coi Leray: It's all about new music, rap feuds and talking fave rappers with Apple Music 1

East Coast rapper Coi Leray has plenty to talk about these days. With new music officially brewing and ample activity happening in her life, it’s only right she takes a moment to chop it up with Apple Music 1’s Ebro Darden for a must-see - and hear - ‘Rap Life Radio’ discussion.

Coi Leray joins Apple Music 1’s ‘Rap Life Radio’ to talk everyting

From her self-titled Coi studio effort to living in New Jersey, it’s more than 20 minutes of all eyes and ears on Miss Leray.

Coi Leray on Self Titling Her New Album…

I feel like even just self titling it Coi, I want people to understand everything that is just about me. At home they call me Coi, Coi Leray is my brand. But my mom, everybody, you or anybody here in the room, I would want you to call me Coi 'cause it's a personal thing.

Coi Leray on Receiving Backlash for her XXL Freestyle…

…with the whole XXL freestyle, I'm going to be honest, I'm not a freestyler. I sit down, I started writing on pen and paper first of course, and then elevated to my phone and then on laptop, just writing on the notes. But if I do freestyling, the most freestyle I'll do is melody passes where I'm not even thinking about…I do a lot of melody passes. I dropped out early. I was very smart but I could say that my vocabulary was not the best. And just metaphors and similes, that's why rap is very powerful because it is like a gift, a talent. And my process was just taking my time and actually really having to write it down, look at what I'm doing and being able to be like, "All right, this don't make sense. Might have to stop and define the word. Might have to look up RhymeZone real quick and see, yo, learn a new word while you're doing that.” So when I did XXL freestyle I'm like, "Yo, I'm going to just f***ing go out there and do whatever." 'Cause I know these people not freestyling like... I don't know, maybe they are, maybe they aren't. I don't, maybe they're writing it before. But I'm like, "I'm going to just go in there and just have fun.”

Coi Leray Reflects on The Controversy Following Latto Name-Dropping Her In a Song and Shares Her Thoughts on Rap Beefs…

It's not a sensitive conversation. I feel like it wasn't more about the body, it was more of mentioning my name. I feel like at the time of how everything went and just... I'm about positivity, you know what I mean? For real. And I wasn't sure where it was coming from. And not only that, I feel like the problem with our community today is we be so quick to trying to change things but we don't do nothing to actually change anything. You feel me? So if we're going to say we're going to stop talking about bodies, then don't mention anything about my body. Just period. Don't compare me to nothing, don't think about nothing. We not smoking on anything, it's disrespect. And where I come from I just don't like that. You know what I mean? And as a human being, as a person, I have every right to say what I feel. But as I learn, not every action needs a reaction. Sometimes no reaction is a reaction. And I just hope my advice to the girls out there just moving forward, find a better way to... I don't know, it's starting to get old. The rap beefs are for the guys. You know, I don't even think they should do it. Us artists, we kind of control the narrative. So if we just spend more time pushing that narrative we won't give these headlines and these blogs no reason to go ahead and push this negative narrative. That's something we got to come together on. 

Coi Leray on Being Entrepreneurial and Her Teen Years on the Streets of Jersey...

So my mom started working late in the bar and she would do three to one o'clock in the morning, three o'clock, two o'clock in the morning. My older brothers, I'm the only girl, my older brothers was out in the streets doing what they needed to do. Every man for themselves. And me, my mom trusted me so much I could do whatever. And it was at a point where my mom couldn't give me what I want, she couldn't give none of us what we wanted financially. So I felt like she was able to give us what we want by the freedom and just trusting us and letting us kind of figure it out. So yeah 13, I lost my virginity very young. Between 13 and 14 I started selling drugs. I dropped out of high school 16, didn't finish ninth grade. And I always worked, I worked at sales and I had my own apartments. I ended up working... I'm so smart, I feel like I was born a genius. I swear, I feel like if they test my IQ it's something high. Yeah, and I always just been on my own. I feel like that's what made me who I am today.

Coi Leray on Her Rap Trajectory and The Rappers She Looked Up To...

...growing up I've always loved music. Whether if it was Lil Wayne No Ceilings, every single one. Of course when Drake came on that was major. Drake, I feel like him singing and rapping and all this stuff... One of my favorite rappers, when I say like, it's Jadakiss… just pure bars. And even just Fab, French Montana. So those were like, just coming up, being from the East Coast, those are the rappers I would look up to. But I also had a voice. And I was also from, I guess, my childhood and being in a diverse world and school. And when I would watch Twilight I would go download the whole soundtrack as well. I was really, really musically inclined. I feel like that's something in my blood for sure.

Coi Leray on Addressing Her Father on the Track “Man’s World”...

I feel like I have to tap every subject. I go through so much, I always write through experience. So whether if it's about relationships, love. With Man's World, I get very vulnerable I feel like. I wouldn't say it's a letter to my dad, but it's more like an open journal. And just instead of social media and things like that, it's about putting it in the music. So I did that with Man's World. I feel like Man's World helped me find that balance for sure, 'cause I was always too afraid. You know, you don't want to hurt nobody. I don't want to hurt nobody. That was always my main thing. I always want to say what I want to say, what I want to feel. But I don't want to hurt nobody. I don't want this to be a bad business move and let my emotions get in the way, regardless if it was a song or not. But I'm 26 now. As I get older and you learn to forgive and you have a lot of great people around you... Like, I'm surrounded by a lot of older people too. I always been the youngest in my camp since a kid. So they just guide you and teach you and they're able to give you the advice. And now I could just talk about it and tell my truth without hurting anybody. I feel like I've mastered that. I mastered of telling my truth without hurting anybody and being able to just still be very positive while doing it. Yeah, it's not easy. But first step is forgiving. And I had to forgive my father regardless of what we've been through. I haven't told my story. A lot of people don't really know me for who I am. There's so much narratives online what these people make out to be, though they don't know what I've been through. And I'm fine with that 'cause they will know my story. And luckily I'll share more. And hopefully he loves the song, he hasn't heard it.

Coi Leray Reflects on Her Relationship with Her Father Growing Up…

Me and my dad ain't had that relationship. He was always so busy and on the road, he never sat down and told me how, you know what I mean, things were or whatever. What he was going through, how he was feeling. I had no clue. He was Mr. Cut-you-off-real-quick, break it. Yeah, I don't even know how it was gone, still to this day.

Coi Leray Tells Apple Music She’s "One of “Them Ones”...

I really feel like I'm one of those ones. I feel like I really am. There's like one Lil Wayne, there's one Drake, one Madonna, there's one Nikki, one Kim, there's one of ones. And these is icons. There's one Tupac, there's one Biggie, there's one Jay-Z, there's one Beyoncé, there's one Rihanna. And every single one of these artists got something in particular about themselves that stand out for them, each and every one of them. Not only that, they all got self-titled albums as well. So I feel like, yeah, this is mines. I'm one of them ones.

Coi Leray on Working with David Guetta…

Shout out David Guetta… he believes in me so much. He come to me he's like, "Yo, I got this crazy..." He goes, "I got this crazy idea." Pulls up his phone he's like, "Just listen." He's like, "Just listen." And then it's like he's showing me, (singing). What's so ironic is this same thing is trending right now on TikTok, the sound for some reason, it's the video of her actually on stage. It's crazy. So I'm like, "Yo, let's kill it. This is fire." He's like, "Yo, I know you will crush this." Him putting it in a beat, they add the drums, everything is happening right on the spot. Once it's made I go in and I just do my melody passes. And then after we... You hear a lot of the words and lyrics and stuff, 'cause I do be saying some shit while I'm doing my melody passes. But yeah, and we come out and we make those songs.

Coi Leray on Criticism For Using Too Many Samples

I feel like sampling, there's nothing wrong with sampling. For some reason a lot of people try to use me for the example of a lot of things. They try to make me an example out of things… I don't think sampling is bad at all. I feel like I get where people might say, "Yo, you're doing too much with the sample. It was good how it was originally." Right? That's what they said. They're saying that all over the internet recently. But I feel like the young generation needs to be taught that. So that's why I say I don't mind being an example. I don't mind having them records and really having amazing records, tapping in with history. 

Coi Leray on Her Relationship with Saucy Santana…

Yeah, me and Saucy, that's someone who we have a genuine, nice relationship outside of music because we've met, obviously. I forgot where we met, probably two years ago, maybe a year ago when he first came out. But we had Fashion Week together, he was with me all with Fashion Week, sat next to each other all the time. I love him. He has amazing energy, he's so talented. And he's one of those people that, he'll get you a verse over. If he f**k with you and love the song, he going to get to the studio. And yeah, I'm in fashion. I'm a fashion girl, he's a fashion girl. So it's like, it's only right to have one of them runway songs with both of us on it and just going crazy. 

Coi Leray on Why She Loves Lola Brooke and Collaborating With Her on “No Angels"…

When Lola hopped on it, oh my God, you don't understand. I'm obsessed with Lola. I really am.And that's why I'm not worried about her at all. At all. I think she's going to be super big. I think she's also one of them ones, for real... I don't know, I love her. I can't wait to do more songs with her. I can't wait to shoot the video to this. I can't wait to just see her journey.