After a whole year of dropping single after single, month after month, Florida rapper Rod Wave dropped his newest album “Nostalgia” the eighth record of his career. The album contains 18 tracks with 55 minutes of runtime.
The first song of the album is “Nostalgia.”The song starts off pretty slow with a lady speaking about her past, Then Rod Wave comes in and talks about his journey to the top of the rap game and how people have either left him or stayed by his side throughout his rap career.
The next song is “Long Journey” which has a different vibe and message than the rest of Rod Wave’s songs. In this song, Rod Wave talks about all the memories he had made on his tours as well as his love for God, and all the blessings God has put in his life. I really like this part of the song because he talks about God and mentions his relationship with him. Personally, I think this is very positive for mainstream music because this album contains songs with Christian values and morals.
The next two songs are very similar to each other. The songs “Call Your Friends” and “HG4” are similar in the aspects of flow and lyrics. Both songs have the lyrics of talking about changing and becoming a better person, along with checking in on your friends. One of my favorite lyrics from “HG4” is “Every day, I’m thanking God that my lifestyle changed.”
In my personal opinion, the worst song in the album is “Come see me.” I just don’t think the song has a natural flow, and the lyrics are very repetitive throughout the song. Another reason I don’t like this song is because all the songs before it have somewhat of an upbeat base and flow, but this song is just really slow, and the lyrics and very generic.
The next song makes up for “Come see me.” “Crazy” is the next song and has very good lyrics, such as, “I dropped everything to chase my dream” and “Livin’ in the real world.”Unfortunately, the next song “Love for Thug” is not very good and is similar to “Come and See Me.” I don’t understand what Rod Wave was thinking because both these songs are very slow and none of the lyrics match the vibe and theme of the album.
Following some subpar music, checkmate is an improvement from the last song, but it is also slow and the song repeats the same lyrics, for example, “Ima pays you back for that one.” It has some good lyrics like “Gotta make your best move your next move”. Overall this song is very average.
“Fight the Feeling” is a single that Rod Wave released in late March. This song is different and is more directed towards Rod Wave’s female audience than his male audience. The song is still one of the best because it is different but at the same time it still has the same meaning and style as the other Rod Wave songs.
With the only feature on the entire album, Rod Wave features 21 savage on “Turks and Caicos.”21 Savage plays a very big role in this song, and he kind of carries this song, however, Rod Wave does have some good lyrics like “She’s a vibe and her friends a vibe.”
Arguably the best song in the album “Boys Don’t Cry” was also released as a single just days before the album dropped. Many fans have this as the best song in the album and think that this is one of the best songs Rod Wave has ever made. Fans also say that this song is very relatable and the lyrics fit the song like a glove.
Following one of Rod Wave’s best songs the next three songs “Pass by You,” “Great Gatsby” and “Keep it G” are all some of the best songs in the album. Out of these three, I would say that my favorite is “Great Gatsby.” Rod Wave actually said that he took inspiration from the movie “Great Gatsby” to help him make this song. Lyrics like “I threw the party of the century and people came over, no one left sober” are nods toward the movie. The other songs I mentioned such as, “Pass by You” and “Keep it G” are pretty good, but I wouldn’t say they are in my top five songs for the album.
Finally, the last four songs in the album “Love Story,” “Rap Beef,” “Back lit” and “2018” are all okay. The best one in this section of the album is “2018.” Rod Wave actually made “2018” with Sadie Jean, but she is not featured in the song which is weird. This song is more of a story instead of just a song, similar to “Nostalgia.” The song starts with Sadie Jean talking about her relationship when she was 17 and how she wished it worked out. Rod Wave then starts singing halfway through the song and he also explains how he wishes a past relationship worked out.
Overall, This album is marvelous, but some songs do bring it down, while others make it way better. I’d give this album a ⅘ stars.
