In 2019, Roddy Ricch was everywhere. “The Box” took the world by storm, Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial hit No. 1 on Billboard. Fast forward to 2025, and his voice was unavoidable. Fast forward to 2025, and that same artist—once crowned the genre’s next superstar—is fighting to prove himself again. So how did public perception shift so drastically? What happened between then and now to put Roddy’s career on the ropes?
Roddy’s rise was meteoric. While those who tapped in early knew him from the Feed Tha Streets mixtapes, his mainstream breakout seemed to happen overnight for the casual listener. When that happens, all of your moves from that point on are looked at under a microscope, and anything short of another cultural moment is bound to be seen as a falloff.
Below, we look at the highs and lows of Roddy’s run so far, how he’s handled the pressure, and what his upcoming Navy Album could mean for his comeback.
When Did the “Roddy Ricch Fell Off” Talk Start?
Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial was such a refined, well-executed debut that it set the bar through the roof for what came next. LIVE LIFE FAST, released December 17, 2021, had its work cut out for it from the jump. Despite debuting at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with 62K first-week sales, it was considered an overall letdown compared to his debut (which spent four weeks at No. 1 with 101K first-week sales). Fans and critics alike felt it lacked the spark that made Roddy special—a classic sophomore slump, but not a career-ender
The reception of LIVE LIFE FAST definitely impacted Roddy, and he decided to go back to the approach and formula that granted him so much success in the first place. Rather than opting for a new route, he tripled down on what he knew. Feed Tha Streets III was released on November 18, 2022, with the intention of flipping the narrative and shifting public opinion back in his favor—and it abruptly backfired. The release was met with a wave of “mid” reactions and “fell off” discourse online, cementing the belief that Roddy had lost his edge. The numbers reflected those opinions debuting at No. 14 on the Billboard 200 with 39K first-week sales.
Roddy Ricch vs. Social Media
As previously mentioned, the reception of LIVE LIFE FAST hit Roddy hard—and for good reason. Rather than offering detailed critiques of the music, a large portion of the online responses seemed to enjoy the act of dragging the project more than listening to it. Things got so out of hand that even the known troll and antagonist DJ Akademiks came to Roddy’s defense.
Basically, groupthink was more prevalent than ever around 2020-21. During that same window of time, Chance the Rapper’s The Big Day project flopped, sparking a narrative that he was never a good artist and should be cast out from music for eternity. While the music was undeniably not great, the conversation around it got toxic. Roddy kept going, even dropping snippets on Twitter, but the responses were so aggressively unwelcoming that it prompted him to delete his account, as seen above.
What to Know About ‘The Navy Album’
After the chaotic episode that was Feed Tha Streets III’s post-release, Roddy went radio silent for a while. He had the occasional feature here and there, like on Gunna’s “let it breathe,” but his solo endeavors were put on pause. Then, in May 2024, rumblings of a new Roddy project being on the way started to surface. Originally, The Navy Album was set to release on December 6th, 2024.
That didn’t happen, and since then, he’s amassed a delay record that rivals Ye’s. The Navy Album has been delayed five times, with the most recent update pushing the release from October to December 5th, 2025.
According to Apple Music, the project is expected to have 16 songs, including the previously released singles “Survivor’s Remorse” and “Lonely Road.”
“Survivor’s Remorse” especially feels like a return to form. The gospel choir recalls the emotion of “War Baby,” the closing track on his 2019 debut, and the lyrics mirror that same vulnerability. Back then, Roddy reflected on the struggle of coming up in the projects; now, he’s reckoning with success itself—fatherhood, legal battles, addiction, and fame’s fallout.
“Imagine if I had a dollar for every time you say I fell off, I’d be a billionaire,” he raps, acknowledging the internet’s constant commentary before admitting how it’s worn on him: “Roddy, you wealthy, Roddy, you golden, Roddy, you built for this / Roddy be tired of everybody opinion, behind the closed doors, you could feel this shit.”
On Genius, The Navy Album tracklist blends the officially released singles and long-teased snippets. Here are some unreleased tracks that might make the final cut:
- “Comfortable” ft. Don Toliver—reportedly a solo Don song that was later given to Roddy and the beat was reworked
- “Purified My Soul” ft. Gunna—previewed by Turbo in January 2025
- “Mr. Digits“—previewed by Roddy Ricch on IG live in 2024
While there’s no guarantee The Navy Album will be a return to form for Roddy, the tracks we’ve heard have been positive signs. As mentioned with “Survivor’s Remorse,” the emotion he displayed on Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial is definitely present on the singles.
On top of that, the possible Gunna and Don Toliver collabs have high potential—he’s worked with Gunna on multiple occasions (including “Start Wit Me” from his first album), and he and Don linked up on Internet Money’s “Lemonade – Remix.“With this formula and a nice run last year, he could be heading in the right direction. If and when The Navy Album drops, we’ll be tapped in.
