Artist Playlists
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Roddy Ricch represents a wave of MCs whose mix of street talk and confessionals has breathed new life into hardcore rap. And while he reps Compton, Ricch’s style isn’t bound by region—the boom is trap, the steely delivery Chicago drill, the laidback stoicism straight West Coast. But the essence of Ricch’s art—captured across these key tracks, including his 2020 Apple Music Award-winning “The Box”—is an unflinching honesty about where he came from and what he’s gone through, from nights on cold floors to the steady drip of violence that marked his young life. - In 2020, Compton rapper Roddy Ricch's massive hit “The Box” and his breakout album Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial were inescapable—and we've got the numbers to prove it. The contagious single has accumulated more than 460 million Apple Music streams worldwide to date, while the album ran up a massive 1.5 billion streams worldwide, earning the rapper Top Song and Top Album of the Year for the 2020 Apple Music Awards. In this performance and short film for the Awards filmed in his native Los Angeles, Roddy marks the achievement by taking us on a beautifully shot journey that pays homage to his roots with a recreation of the apartments he grew up in as his backdrop. “I feel like where I grew up, it just made me kind of who I am, and that just bleeds through the music,” he tells Apple Music. “Whatever I done experienced, whatever I had to go through, good or bad, that's just what shaped me.” From the courtyard where he performs “War Baby” (complete with a small choir to reflect his upbringing in the church) to the hallway that sets the scene for “Start wit Me” and the claustrophobic living room that brings a dose of reality to “The Box,” viewers are dropped into a day in the life of one of the year's brightest stars. And he doesn't take his unlikely journey for granted. “To have Top Song and Album of the Year is everything, because it doesn't constrict me to a genre,” he says. “It doesn't constrict me to any type of limitations or walls, and it shows people from where I'm from you can knock down any barrier.”
- Roddy Ricch likes his drama. No shame in that, especially given how well he wears it. Like his raps, the performances in these videos are dark, physical, and cathartic—you can see him working things out. Yes, there’s a little glamour in them. But mostly, Ricch comes across on camera the way he does in his music: sifting the trauma of his past with a steady, soulful, and self-assured hand.
- Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
- Roddy Ricch isn’t the most public person outside of music, so you’re excused if you didn’t know the hitmaking Los Angeles MC recently become a father. It’s a new kind of challenge for Ricch—who’s just released his sophomore album LIVE LIFE FAST—but it’s one he’s tackling head-on, having had a great example of how to go about it within his own family. “I'm going to just do like my pops did me,” Ricch tells Zane Lowe. “My pops, he really just like told me a lot of shit and it stuck with me. A lot of parents get lost in trying to relive through their kids and right their wrongs and shit. But I ain't on that. I really want this man to be whoever he want to be.” Apart from parenthood, Ricch spoke with Zane about LA street politics, recording LIVE LIFE FAST, and his relationships with musical heroes Kanye West and Travis Scott. Watch the two chop it up—two years from when they last sat down—and stream Ricch’s LIVE LIFE FAST now.
- This past week, we’ve reflected on 2020 through the incredible achievements of our Apple Music Awards honorees with performances, interviews, and more. Breakthrough Artist of the Year Megan Thee Stallion heated things up with an electric rodeo-themed performance while repping for Houston and for the ladies; Compton rapper Roddy Ricch celebrated his Top Song and Album of the Year by recreating the apartments he grew up in to symbolize how far he’s come; our Songwriter of the Year, Taylor Swift, broke down how the pandemic inspired her creative process in an illuminating discussion with Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe; and our Artist of the Year, Lil Baby, took us to Atlanta to show how his city remains foundational to his music and success. Together, these artists were beacons of perseverance through uncertain times who provided not only a soundtrack for the year but a little bit of much-needed joy, too. Here, they help us wrap up the 2020 Apple Music Awards with assists from Apple Music 1 hosts Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden.