Roddy Ricch received six nominations at the 2021 Grammy Awards but failed to win in any of the categories. During a recent interview with Power 2016, the Compton rapper revealed he went into the ceremony with low expectations due to the fact JAY-Z lost all eight of his nominations at the 2018 Grammys, which is something he was reminding his family members.
“Everybody was just like, ‘Why you saying that? Why is it so negative,’” he recalled. “I don’t know. I just had a feeling like, I ain’t really worried about it. So I end up going and I ain’t win, but I wasn’t mad. I ain’t going into it expecting nothing, I’m already a winner. I don’t do it for money, so it’s like, I’m not just gon’ rap for no reason.
“When I lost all that, I was like, ‘I put a lot of time and music, you know, damn.’ I just sat back. I was talking to my n-ggas, I’m like, ‘Man, I’ma chill back. I’ma kick back on the music for a little while.”
Roddy Ricch then revealed a simple yet powerful interaction with JAY-Z at the ceremony gave him the inspiration he needed to keep going.
“I had seen Jay at the Grammys and he didn’t say, ‘What’s up?’” he said. “The first time I met him he was like, ‘What’s up young man?’ So I just expected that. And the first thing he asked me was, ‘When you dropping music?’ At the time, it didn’t really hit me, but later on, I just thought of the power of that. I manifested, just talking about how they did him one year, and it happened to me. And the same guy this happened to ended up asking me when I’ma put out more music. So it just kinda led me to think for a while, like, ‘Damn, I gotta keep doing this.’ Even though I done went No. 1 for 11 weeks, No. 1 for seven weeks, that’s stuff that we don’t really see too often.”
He continued, “After that, I kind of wanted to back up, but he really gave me that inspiration like, ‘You gotta keep going. You gotta just see it through. When you got something to talk about, say it, put it out and keep it going.’ So I just wanna publicly appreciate JAY-Z for that. Like I said, it helped me keep going. It be real life that keep me going with this. It don’t really be like, ‘I’ma just do this feature for this.’ If something really happen to me, that’s what really keep me going in this shit ’cause honestly, I won already bro.”
On Friday (June 4), Roddy Ricch returned with his first solo single of 2021, “Late at Night.” The Mustard and GYLTTRYP-produced song arrived with a music video directed by Director X — watch it below.