Song of the Day Pt. 2: Post #48

RODDY RICCH

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK9UDVBqIBs

WAR BABY BY RODDY RICCH

I'm from the bottom of the bottom, check your sources, baby

I'm a war baby, but I can't divorce the paper
I'm a hood nigga that turned rich so I got Dior's latest
And you know I gotta stick to my roots, I still rock Jordans, baby
It was hell in the projects, I survived the storm
Got brothers in the sky, they die 'fore they born
I know the worst conditions make a champion
Look at my ice froze like a mannequin
I'm underwater like I'm swimming and panicking
Body bags zipped up like a laminate
Only solution for the opps is to stay inside
How your niggas say they rock, but they don't slide?

'Cause we was hopping out in broad day
Serving fiends in the hallway
Promethazine 'til the morning
Hope I don't wake up tomorrow
We was the type of niggas that would rob the robbers
I'ma make the choppa sing like la-di-da-da-da (la-da, la-da)
The choppa sing like la-di-da-da-da
Survived in the trenches, I'm a war baby
Had to slide on the sliders that ain't normal, baby

Like the mob ties in Houston we got rag ties
I pray the Lord forgive me the day that I got baptized
'Cause I'ma clutch the sticky every time a car passing by
I don't wanna be Ricky or another victim of homicide
'Cause I know the soul never dies
I make the chrome-chrome fly
Bitch, I'm a wave, Roll Tide
Bullets at your face, bow tie
My persona done got her tongue tied
I was taught that a legend never dies
When it's time gotta let the lead fly
'Cause I'm a war-war-war baby
Post-traumatic stress I know the war changed me
Had to bend back but they could never break me, had to slide

'Cause we was hopping out in broad day
Serving fiends in the hallway
Promethazine 'til the morning
Hope I don't wake up tomorrow
We was the type of niggas that would rob the robbers
I'ma make the choppa sing like la-di-da-da-da (la-da, la-da)
The choppa sing like la-di-da-da-da
Survived in the trenches I'm a war baby
Had to slide on the sliders that ain't normal baby, yeah

If you listen to these artist stories you will hear talk of struggle and pain, yet those painful stories are blended with truth, hope, and happiness to make the listener understand and feel the life of the artist. Poetry has a profound affect on the mind and soul of the reader, rap has that same affect. In an interview with the Rolling Stone, LA rapper Roddy Ricch said: “When I caught that gun case… I wasn’t scared of it, but it hit me like, ‘I’m really going to have to sit down if this shit goes south,’” he says. “And I didn’t want to do that. I don’t want to lose my time to some bullshit. At the same time, I’m seeing homies pass away. I got to do something positive. That’s when the rap shit came about. Literally within six months my shit was moving, because I really just sat down and started writing.” The last song on his latest album is called “War Baby,” Roddy Ricch vividly recounts stories of his days in the ghetto in which he tells the listener that not only he has been in the “mud,” slang for prison, he has seen his friends brutally murdered by some thugs down the street. Gang violence is reality for a lot of rappers, a painful truth that is highlighted in their music. These rappers do not only rap about their lives, they rap about their pain. Vulnerability is what makes rap good and real. Without the vulnerability these rappers share with the listener, rap would be like any other genre.