In March, Florida artist and 2020 XXL Freshman Rod Wave proved his reach in the music industry by dropping the chart-topping album SoulFly. Housing fan-favorite songs like "Tombstone" and "Streetrunner," Rod Wave's latest album outperformed initial sales projections and moved 130,000 album-equivalent units during its first week.
Since SoulFly's release, Rod Wave has revealed that he was originally supposed to be on Drake and Rick Ross' "Lemon Pepper Freestyle" and also delivered a moving performance of "Tombstone" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Now, NPR has released the Pray 4 Love artist's NPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, for which he enlisted the talents of a fully decked-out band.
Backed by a saxophone, flute, bass, drum, and piano, Rod Wave kicks off his set by performing "OMDB" and covering the iconic intro to Drake's Take Care opener "Over My Dead Body." He then takes a quick break after finishing up the song and subsequently talks about the sheer amount of hard work and effort that he put into SoulFly.
"I put a lot into this album. I feel like, personally, I hit my creative peak," Rod Wave reveals. "I put a lot into this — a lot of thought, a lot of effort, a lot of pain."
Elsewhere in his Tiny Desk set, Rod Wave knocks out performances of other well-received SoulFly cuts like "Streetrunner" and "Don't Forget," and fans of the St. Petersburg artist will also be joyed to hear that he reaches further back in his catalog to perform a stripped rendition of "Rags2Riches."
Check out Rod Wave's full NPR Tiny Desk (Home) Concert below.