Roddy Ricch on Why Him Trying to Mimic the Career of an Artist Like Jay-Z or Drake Is 'Almost Impossible'

It's safe to say that Roddy Ricch is on top of the world. After securing two No. 1 records and multiple Grammy nods, he's poised to be one of music's next superstars. Despite this, Roddy isn't looking to follow the blueprint laid by acts like Jay-Z. Instead, he's focused on blazing his own trail.

"Someone can inspire you musically because music is a sound, but trying to mimic somebody’s career, that’s almost impossible," Roddy said during a recent interview with Variety. "I could never say that I want my career to be like, let’s just say, Jay-Z. Because Jay-Z at 22…did we even know Jay-Z at 22? I think Jay-Z put his first album out at, what, 27? Even Drake was, what, 24, 23? I don’t even know. I’m 22 coming off two No. 1s. It’s just a different time. It’s like thinking about Michael Jordan, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant—you can’t compare them, because they came up at three different points in time, they had to play against different people, people’s mentality was different. So I just do my own thing, honestly. I can’t say, ‘I want this man’s life,’ or ‘I want this man’s career,’ because that’s envy, and envy is a sin"

Roddy Ricch ripped into the mainstream when his viral hit "The Box" took over the beginning of 2020. This was coming off a Grammy-winning appearance on Nipsey Hussle's "Racks in the Middle" which gave him the platform to skyrocket. Although it seems like Roddy is an overnight success, the rapper made it clear to Variety that he's not. He also let it be known that he doesn't feel outside pressure to live up to the success of his debut album.

"I feel like pressure is self-imposed," he said before explaining that there's no rush for him to microwave another album for fans. "So I ain’t under no pressure. I’m in a good place—whenever my momma turns on the car I’m still on the radio. So for me to drop a whole other album right now, it’s just overkill. At least let me wait until, instead of five songs on the radio, let me wait till I’ve got two. I don’t wanna be just putting songs on the radio all the time. We ain’t making mixtape music no more. You’ve gotta give it space and time for people to digest it."

"I feel like the problem with us nowadays is we want everything right now," he continued. "But the music isn’t gonna be progressive when you’re putting something out every three months, because you ain’t been through nothing; you still feel like how you felt when you [last] dropped the music. To me, stuff doesn’t happen in my life every single day. Maybe for some people it does, but my life don’t happen that fast. I have to give myself time to actually go through things so I can speak on it, and have a new understanding of life."