Before Rod Wave would team up with YNW Melly, Gloknine, MoneyBagg Yo and his childhood idol
Kevin Gates on tracks Cuban Links & Titanic.
Before Rod Wave would clock in over 1/2 a million followers on Instagram, nearly 60K
on Instagram & 300K Subscribers on YouTube at the time of this recording.
Before signing with Alamo Records.
Rod Wave has been singing since the 5th grade but never thought he would actually have a
career in music.
Rod is self described as an extremely shy dude, he was never on Instagram or Facebook
and was even reluctant to jump into the rap game.
Before I had this, I had a regular life, gettin up, doing what I need to do to put some money
in my pocket.
But now that I'm in the music business, you have to make all this noise to get attention,
it aint me.
I'm just like you.
I'm a regular person who just makes nice music.
After a few stints in Juvenile Dention centre and serving house arrest Rod Wave decided
he had to turn his life around and give his god given talents a real shot.
He also got some help from his pops when he got out of jail who bought him a microphone
and his brother who gifted him a computer to produce his earliest work.
What's going on guys?
It's your boy Michael McCrudden back at it with another Before They Were Famous on a
new artist who is about to blow up named Rod Wave.
We got a few other artists on the come up we will be bringing you guys like Happy Birthday
Calvin.
I need you guys to keep the suggestions coming in for who to do next in the comments down
below – you can hit me up on the DM's on Instagram or Twitter at McCruddenM and as
always in the comments down below.
Aright, let's get into this video:
Rod Wave was born Rodarious Marcell Green on August 27th 1999 in St Petersburg Florida.
A little back story on St. Pete's it's been nicknamed the Sunshine City having won the
Guinness World Record for logging the most consecutive days of sunshine.
His parents separated when he was in elementary school but lived in close quarters to one
another on the same block.
His grandma also played a big role in his life and also called him Boobie.
During his younger years, money was good as his dad kept him in food and clothes through
his various enterprises and the streets of St Petes.
Then his dad got locked up for 6 years and the family had to move, which also resulted
in him getting split up from living with his big bro.
During this time his grandma and uncle stepped in to help out but then he too got locked
up.
From there on out Rod found himself the only man surrounded by female figures and turned
to hustling on the streets himself to make some money.
Speaking with DJ Smallz Eyes, Rod was a little disenfranchised with his future prospects
being from St. Pete's.
While attending Lakewood High School he began selling drugs, breaking into cars, robbing
houses and the likes – eventually the law would catch up with him as well and he was
in and out of juvenile detention centres.
He picked up charges including armed robbery and carrying a concealed weapon which I turned
out to be a pellet gun.
According to local reports – there was a photo on social media of Rod holding a weapon
which was then brought to the attention of a teacher, who contacted the Officers on campus.
They located Rod before he boarded his bus to go home and found the pellet gun in his
backpack.
This stint caught him time in a Juvenile Detention Centre and then some time on house arrest.
He would also get some views online for a more positive
reason with his peers posting the odd video of him singing.
Music had always been a big part of Rod Wave's life, he started singing in the 5th grade
and was encouraged to keep at it by his big brother.
His favourite album growing up with Kanye West's College Drop Out, speaking on this
he told XXL:
He wasn't tryna be somethin' he wasn't.
It was like a breath of fresh air.
It wasn't murder-murder kill-kill; he was talking about something else.
He also listened to a lot of Boosie and Kevin Gates.
Him and
his father stayed in contact while he did his time in jail.
Knowing the realities of prison and that his son had some serious talent he bought him
son a microphone when he got out.
His big bro also chipped in gifting him a computer that he had found.
When he says found, I'm guessing it was stolen.
Using this starter-level setup to record, Rod made music for fun, not thinking much
would come of it or that people would be so moved with what he had to say.
Fast forward the clock to 2016 and his producer knew that they had something special that
they needed to share with the world and finally, with Rod's blessing he released his highly
personal tracks online which quickly began to pick up a local buzz.
Things started off via word of mouth, but when people began playing his music outside
of St. Petersburg that's when Rod Wave knew that they were onto something big.
His breakout single Heartbreak Hotel was released near the end of 2016 and picked up some serious
plays on YouTube, now boasting over a million views.
Other notable tracks include Think Too Much, Gambling and Hunger Games.
Hunger Games was also the name of his first mixtape dropped at the end of 2016.
From there his popularity began to snowball and he began doing local shows while getting
booked in other cities in the US.
In 2017, Rod released his next project Rookie of the Year which picked up traffic on iTunes,
Spotify, SoundCloud and YouTube.
The success was enough to get the attention of Alamo Records.
Big name collabs would soon follow, I mentioned a bunch in the intro.
YNW Melly, Gloknine, MoneyBagg Yo and Kevin Gates – all of whom we have made a Before
They Were Famous video on.
This year he dropped his third instalment of his Hunger Games mixtape, he made the move
to Atlanta buying himself a new crib and he even bought a family member a new car.
He also performed at Rolling Loud in his home state of Miami and when asked by XXL about
his future and his inevitable blow up he stated:
I just love making music, bruh.
The s that's goin' on in the music s, that s ain't gon' last too long.
Poppin' Percs everyday gon' kill ya a and going to the club every night gets tiring.
But life comes with ups and downs.
Life comes with pain.
That's what I give the people, what I go through.
I really don't wanna talk about none of that other s.
We talk about love, pain, everyday struggles and I feel like that's gonna last the longest.
He concluded with Next big n**** out the bottom.
As for the rest of the story, well we are gonna have to wait and see because this is
Before They Were Famous.
My name is Michael McCrudden and we make all sorts of celebrity bio's here for you on this
channel.
You guys gotta let us know who is next in the comments down below and I'll see you guys
in another video.