Rod Wave is a loner by nature. While many of us struggle to adjust to life in quarantine, self-isolation has been the 20-year-old rapper’s norm for years. His music is a completely unfiltered outlet for the emotions he feels during his time alone. Recorded alone in a dark room, Wave’s latest album “Pray 4 Love” details the love, pain and everyday struggles felt by a young rapper who has never let fame change him. 

After releasing his successful “Hunger Games” mixtape series in 2017 and 2018, the St. Petersburg, Florida rapper made a name for himself in the hip-hop industry with his debut album “Ghetto Gospel.” The 2019 tape peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart and has since racked up millions of streams, cementing Wave’s status as a streaming giant. He’s also taken TikTok by storm with his viral hit “Heart On Ice,” received a Cole Bennett-directed Lyrical Lemonade music video for his song “Thief In The Night” and earned co-signs from Meek Mill and 21 Savage.

While all of this early career success could easily change the young star, it has only made Wave more comfortable sharing who he is. 

He told Complex, “Every album, I get more comfortable and it gets more personal because I feel like there are people out there accepting me, who love my music and feel my pain.” 

Unlike other rappers who flex their wealth and drug use, Wave’s music is about real life. 

“We need to talk about real s—: the way we feel, all that,” he said.

Wave’s realness is evident throughout “Pray 4 Love,” as he details his devastation and disappointment despite achieving stardom. He may prefer to be alone, but that doesn’t mean his music lacks feeling. Instead, it is his way of opening up. The album reflects this intense personal connection, having no features and being recorded in a hotel room with Wave’s engineer as the only other person present during the sessions.

The project begins with the title track, “Pray 4 Love,” in which Wave impressively blurs the lines between pure singing and melodic rapping. He proves himself to be a true singer, grounded in R&B principles, who can also rap: an anomaly among his peers. The somber song reflects Wave’s trust issues, wariness around women and issues with fame, as he raps, “Who can you trust in this cold, cold world, better get a blanket.”

The tape continues with “F— the World,” a heartbreaking glimpse into Wave’s self-imposed isolation. Nearly breaking down, he cries, “Said you wouldn’t leave, but you left like I expected / I opened up ’bout my pain, now I regret it.” He would rather be alone than feel this type of pain, asking to be “taken to the moon and dropped off.”

“I Remember,” the project’s longest song, begins with a warm, vibrating piano then quickly adds a hopeful yet bluesy guitar. The track runs through the traumatic events Wave has experienced, from his father going to prison to a friend betraying him over money to unreciprocated love and more. He hasn’t let tragedy bring him down, though, acknowledging, “Crazy thing is, out of all life done taught me / Before you get one win, you gotta take a thousand losses.”

Wave continues on the theme of addressing the poor cards he was dealt with earlier in life on “The Greatest.” He recalls the roots of his fearless rapping by remembering how he “got it off the pavement” and paved a new path for himself. Wave flows into melodic singing on the bridge, predicting that he’s “bound to see brighter days.” The production on this track, in particular, shines, with its expressive piano reflecting the song’s sorrowful yet optimistic vibe.

“Pray 4 Love” closes with “Dark Clouds,” another soulful track over a full-bodied piano/guitar loop. Wave’s signature vulnerability is epitomized in the song as he details some of the darkest times of his life. He touches on everything from homesickness and heartbreak to betrayal. Unlike other parts of the album where Wave offers a glimmer of hope that his sadness will not be forever, on “Dark Clouds,” he falls into his deepest depression, revealing, “It’s been so many dark days / Been so many dark days and dark clouds” and “I been feelin’ pain for so long, uh / I done became numb.” The song, and the album itself, closes quite heartbreakingly, as Wave pleads for something to make him smile and bring light into his darkness. 

While he may have done it unknowingly, Rod Wave put out an album eerily emblematic of many of our experiences in quarantine. During this time, there is an endless cycle of emotions: highs and lows, glimmers of hope, sadness, longing and more. “Pray 4 Love” captures all these emotions perfectly. Wave shows us that we don’t have to wallow in our isolation and that brighter days are ahead. 

As we take time to reflect and heal ourselves during this time alone, “Pray 4 Love” is the perfect soundtrack to do so to.