Roddy Ricch - Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial [2019]

Roddy Ricch, the young Compton emcee who has been slowly building up buzz over the past two years, is a testament to the overwhelming influence on mainstream trap today of two men: Young Thug and Future. Future predates Thugger by a few years, but they both found their grooves and niches around the same time. The key to understanding where Roddy Ricch comes from as an artist is understanding how far these two took melodic, autotuned rapping into the mainstream. But let’s be real: the time of Future Hendrix and Young Thug are almost over, and while they may have made a profound impact on the youth of today’s culture, they were never meant to reach the lofty, universal mainstream heights that I believe some of these kids will achieve, Roddy Ricch included. While Thug and Super were boundary pushing and almost experimental in their styles, the Lil Uzi Verts and Lil Durks and Roddy Ricchs are walking into an established artform, with the popular platform already laid out for them to be successful. I mean just look at Gunna and Lil Baby: both Thug proteges, yet both of them have consistently outsold Thugger, better even than the numbers he pulled while he was in his heyday. The point is that the legwork has been done and the groundwork has been set for someone like Roddy Ricch, who has taken and perfected the formulas in order to reach the most people. His debut album Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial appeals to the culture today in so many ways including animated and unexpected flows, surprisingly competent vocal-work and melodies (but with that little Thug wrench thrown in there for surprises), and a spread of beats with some of the catchiest instrumental melodies presented by a Freshman in a while. I mean hell, even look at the name of this project, Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial; it sounds more like a pop-punk album from the early 2000’s than a collection of rapped street tales.

These three men, Gunna (left), Future (middle), & Young Thug (right), are crucial to understanding where Roddy Ricch comes from. All three of these men being from Atlanta, while Roddy is from Compton, says a lot about the shifting culture.

Roddy Ricch as a rapper and singer takes almost all of his cues from Young Thug and Future, and depending on the track and his approach to it can switch up his style to fit any situation. Tracks like the Intro, Start wit Me, Peta, Moonwalkin, High Fashion, and Tip Toe contain the frantic, hilarious yelps and bizarre lyrics. Right off the bat with the Intro you’re treated with “Bad bitch give me ne-e-e-e-e-e-e-eck / Flooded my wrist it’s wetwetwetwetwetwetwetwet” that screams Thugger with every repetition. In these instances his flows, in both cadence and intensity, are constantly shifting and changing, demanding your attention just to figure out what the fuck is going on. But, with the Future influence in there as well, he never delves too deep into silly comedy to take away from the sincerity of a lot of his lyrics and topics. Perfect Time, Gods Eyes, Roll Dice, and Prayers to the Trap God highlight a lot of his emotional struggles, and by reeling back his wildness you get the heart of some of his emotion and street connection that give him credibility in his rhymes. It’s also in these times where you find that his singing voice is actually nothing to scoff at, where while whenever he gets higher and faster registers he can be an animal, his softer voice can convey a large amount of emotion, with the sense of hopelessness that it conveys giving weight to the assertion in the title Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial that Roddy is an antisocial individual. It’s some of these same characteristics that also present in a third influence that’s apparent, and that is Meek Mill. A lot of the substance of this record reads like that of an underdog; the grind, the struggle, loosing loved ones in the street, and stunting on people that hated while he was climbing up the ladder. The Intro, Peta (which Meek is also featured on), Prayers to the Trap God, and War Baby are the cuts with the most drama, the ones with the most on the line, where Roddy explains why he is the way that he is. War Baby in particular, with the swelling chorus near the end, reads as the perfect Meek outro that sums up the struggle he faces in his neighborhood.

The key to marketing a rapper that is slightly out-of-the-ordinary is a solid spread of catchy and memorable instrumentals, and Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial is in no short supply of beats that bang, rock, ride, and inspire. The instrumental melodies that you can find across this thing are stunning, with many of these beats being some of the catchiest and inventive mainstream hip-hop beats I’ve heard this year. The singles were all expertly crafted to garner attention to this project. Big Stepper with it’s Country-esque guitar-work; the chord progression might be a bit repetitive but it really conveys the sense of this hood desperado, and the dense trap snares and hi-hats are super crisp. Start wit Me has these what sound like harp plucks that are short and cute that ride in the middle of the beat, and a recorder or some other digitized wind instrument being played in this cool long melody. The drum kicks on this track are super punchy, rocking speaker systems, and paired with the sparse hi-hats and snares make this track slap more than most others here. Tip Toe takes the best of the two previous tracks and combines them, with these everpresent guitar arpeggios dotted with dainty flute notes; a heavenly and blissful beat, cut by tasteful kicks and snares. Peta takes the cake for slappers on this album, because these drums *hit*; the furious drunken and woozy guitar playing is layered behind a prominent recorder that switches from a low to high pitch. The more reflective cuts like Intro, Perfect Time, Gods Eyes, and Prayers to the Trap God are all very similar in the way they approach things: overdramatic piano keys mixed with trap percussion at a moderate pace (with the exception of Prayers to the Trap God where piano is substituted for guitars). People that listen to YoungBoy NBA or Lil Durk will be familiar with these types of beats, but they don’t do much for me personally. But the more provocative and sensual cuts offer more than melodrama: Moonwalkin with it’s subdued guitars and very faint vocal sample backed by a fast paced trap beat, and Bacc Seat with it’s fantastic guitar work (very Red Hot Chili Peppers-ish) that features a prominent player killing this catchy melody and a backing instrument accenting giving depth and warmth to the track. High Fashion is probably going to be the track that lasts the longest out of this collection of tracks, for even while the other DJ Mustard produced track Ballin’ off of his album earlier this year is slowly climbing up at Hot 100, Roddy comes out with a second, smooth banger in collaboration with the producer. Mustard is often written off as being a one-trick pony, but you need to know that this man has grown more than most other producers have from the early 2010’s, and High Fashion is a prime example of this. The feel-good pianos arranged in a fantastic chord progression, crisp snaps and digital kicks, that deep-rooted and quick vocal sample in the background, and that really cool like 80’s drum breakdown every 4 bars or so just show a perfectionist in his craft at work.

Nipsey Hussle (left) was one of Roddy Ricch’s (right) first cosigns in the rap game. When you get a cosign from Nip, you know the streets fuck with you heavy.

The features are also rock-fucking-solid, reminding me of older hip-hop projects where the features are the best that those artists have to offer. A Boogie wit da Hoodie really gets into the spirit with animated flows and funny lines interspersed with whispered threats, giving his appearance so much character and replayability. Lil Durk’s appearance on Moonwalkin is burned into my mind with some of the cringiest lyrics on the project, but I’ll be damned if his melodies aren’t on point; it’s sort of like a train-wreck that manifests as a ballet performance, you just can’t stop watching it. Start wit Me was one of my favorite singles leading up to Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial, and Gunna’s appearance on here really made me happy to see him working so closely with fellow XXL Freshmen, delivering a speedy and fiery verse. Getting a Ty Dolla $ign verse, and *not* a hook, is rare enough in itself; but Dolla coming through with rapping features and it turns out to be this good is legendary, with his sexy and smoldering verse really bringing down the house with the swagger and confidence to kill an elephant. But Meek Mill by far is the star guest on this project, with Peta being more of a collaborative track rather than a one off verse from Meek. He does a killer half of the hook: “I’m rockin’ furs on furs / I’m probably beefin’ with PETA / I gotta pay her to leave her / it’s probably cheaper to keep her” is classic Meek flexing, and with the “I went to jail with my feet up” line the hype on this hook is palpable. But he also comes through with crazy good feature, with the speed and energy that he brings showing a clear respect for Roddy Ricch, which I’m sure comes from the fact that at one point it was speculated Roddy was signing to Dreamchasers.

Roddy Ricch’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial is, I believe, going to be the outlet through which many people are exposed to the styles of Young Thug and Future for years to come. He distills the oddities of Thug and the drugged-out overuse of autotune from Hendrix into a palatable, catchy, and compelling form. People have been trying to figure out how to get this sound onto the radio for a while now, and while, sure, Lil Uzi and them have seen massive success, I think Roddy has the potential to really break into those markets that someone like Uzi can’t reach: the more mature and mainstream markets. He can speak to the younger generation with the banger beats and the youthful energy (see the album’s title), and some older heads with his channeling of people like Meek Mill in his lyrics. Regardless of everything, I think this dude is going to continue to make moves out in California and build his legend there ever larger. If Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial isn’t his gateway, then one will present itself very soon, because this kid has this sound on lock.

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