Rod Wave

trap · hip hop

Rod Wave, born Rodarius Marcell Green on August 27, 1998, is an American rapper and singer from St. Petersburg, Florida, working in a melodic trap-soul style that sets Southern hip-hop production against a heavy, gospel-inflected singing voice and lyrics about grief, poverty, incarceration and heartbreak. He signed to Alamo Records, distributed through Interscope and later Geffen, and broke through in 2019 with "Heart on Ice," which went viral on TikTok months after its release and eventually reached number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album Ghetto Gospel (2019) reached number ten on the Billboard 200, and Pray 4 Love (2020) reached number two and produced "Rags2Riches" with Lil Baby. He then delivered three consecutive number-one albums — SoulFly (2021), Beautiful Mind (2022) and Nostalgia (2023) — with SoulFly yielding the top-20 singles "Street Runner" and "Tombstone." Last Lap (2024) reached number two, and a further album, Don't Look Down, follows in 2026. He is the only male artist to place an album in the Billboard top ten in every year from 2019 through 2024, and has now had seven consecutive top-ten records; his catalogue has moved the equivalent of roughly 65 million units in the United States. He cites E-40, Tupac Shakur and Boosie Badazz alongside Kanye West, Adele and Ed Sheeran as influences, and the latter half of that list is audible in how much of his material is sung outright rather than rapped — critics have described him as hopscotching between Southern hip-hop, alternative R&B and soul, and he has characterised the writing itself as a form of therapy. He has headlined a tour behind each album since 2020, the Ghetto Gospel, SoulFly, Beautiful Mind, Nostalgia and Last Lap runs, and is currently on The Redemption Experience, an arena tour that began in 2025.

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