‘The Box’: The song that made Roddy Ricch a star
Roddy Ricch has been making music since the middle of the 2010s when he was just a teenager, but his passion for music began way before that. The Compton rapper, born Rodrick Wayne Moore Jr., started rapping at eight and continued to spit bars throughout his school years. In addition to lyrics, he was also making beats at 16.
In 2015, he released his first song, ‘Cuz I’m On’, before dropping his debut mixtape, Feed Tha Streets, in 2017. The following year, he released the sequel, Feed Tha Streets II, which featured his popular songs, ‘Die Young’ and ‘Every Season’.
He landed a major break in 2019 by guesting on Nipsey Hussle’s ‘Racks in the Middle’, produced by Hit-Boy, which served as the last song Nipsey released before his death. The song reached number 26 on the Hot 100 and won Best Rap Performance at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, while also being nominated for Best Rap Song.
That same year, he also found success as a featured artist on Mustard’s ‘Ballin’. The song, which appeared on Mustard’s Perfect Ten album, climbed even higher to number 11 on the Hot 100 and also received a nomination for Best Rap/Sung Performance at the Grammys.
Roddy probably thought he had hit the jackpot already, but the best was yet to come. He signed to Atlantic Records for the release of his debut album, Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial, which dropped in December 2019. He shared several singles, ‘Big Stepper’, ‘Start Wit Me’ and ‘Tip Toe’, leading up to the project, but those tracks didn’t even come close to the success of ‘The Box’ – the song that changed everything for him.
‘The Box’ spent an impressive 11 weeks at number one on the Hot 100, receiving nominations for Best Rap Song, Best Melodic Rap Performance and Song of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards. Roddy raps on the catchy hook, “I just hit a lick with the box/ Had to put the stick in the box.” Much of its success has been credited to the “eee err” sound heard throughout the song, which helped it go viral across social media. While it may sound like something crafted by the producer, the sound is actually Roddy himself.
“Anybody who listens to music knows it’s his voice,” producer 30 Roc told HipHopDX. “That’s not possible. It’s possible for me to do that, but if I was to put that in the beat without him laying the vocals, I felt like it would throw the beat off. I’m happy that he actually did that instead of us actually adding a chant before the vocals. It’s so crazy to me. I have real producers that be asking me, ‘Is this a part of your beat?’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, you can tell this is Roddy’s voice.’ If you really listen to it, it’s definitely Roddy’s voice.”
‘The Box’ came to life in New York City, recorded in just 15 minutes at the end of an all-night studio session. If only he had known what would happen to his world after coming up with that idea in the early morning hours.
While Roddy has struggled to find the same success since, with songs like ‘High Fashion’ and ‘Late at Night’ only breaking number 20 on the Hot 100, he’s still certified himself as a force of the 2020s. Roc claimed he knew ‘The Box’ would “change both of our lives” simply from listening to the beat, and his intuition was strong.