In The Quantity Ones, I’m reviewing each single #1 single within the historical past of the Billboard Sizzling 100, beginning with the chart’s starting, in 1958, and dealing my method up into the current. Guide Bonus Beat: The Quantity Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the Historical past of Pop Music.
The ee-urr is the hook. It’s not the solely hook, nevertheless it’s the one which issues. Roddy Ricch’s “The Field,” the primary chart-topper of the 2020s, is a good, springy little marvel of recent-vintage melodic rap, and it’s received numerous components that may catch your ear. There’s the swollen orchestral intro, the thunderous entrance of the 808s, and the smooth, playful method that Roddy Ricch approaches the churn of the beat, including in a brand new cadence each few seconds. However each gigantic tune wants at the very least one little additional factor that makes it stand out. For “The Field,” that factor was the ee-urr — the unusual and ear-catching sound impact that repeats all by way of the monitor.
On TikTok, the ee-urr turned a degree of comedy. Individuals posted little skits highlighting all of the issues that ee-urr recalled — windshield wipers, Windex rags, squeaky sneakers on hardwood, smoke alarms that want their batteries modified. For causes that no person might ever fairly articulate, that bizarre, hypnotic repeated sound elevated “The Field” and remodeled it right into a phenomenon. When “The Field” stormed the Sizzling 100 after which remained atop the chart throughout a second of profound cultural turbulence, numerous folks tried to determine why the tune was as huge because it was. Roddy Ricch was an ascendant major-label rap prospect earlier than “The Field,” however no person anticipated him to shoulderblock international pop stars out of the highest spot the way in which that he did. “The Field” wasn’t even picked as a single earlier than it blew up, and its music video didn’t come out till the tune had already been caught at #1 for greater than a month. How did this tune explode so rapidly? Why did it preserve its maintain for so long as it did? Might it actually simply be the ee-urr? Sure. Sure, it might.
The ee-urr was a last-minute addition to a last-minute tune. When Roddy Ricch recorded “The Field,” he was practically completed along with his first correct album Please Excuse Me For Being Delinquent. He’d been engaged on that album for some time, and he had his label behind him. Roddy had already made a handful of viral hits and cracked the Sizzling 100 a number of instances, and folks had huge plans for him. The LP has contributions from some well-known guest-rappers and producers, and some early singles have been already locked in. When he made “The Field,” Roddy Ricch was in a New York studio early within the morning, ending a productive all-night session. This was his basic working course of — get a ton of beats and file over these beats, nearly indiscriminately, in marathon classes. Roddy’s engineer as soon as estimated that he recorded 250 tracks whereas placing his album collectively. That workaholic flow-state methodology doesn’t look like it might or ought to result in nice, dominant, profitable pop songs, however the world is a captivating place. Mysterious issues occur on a regular basis.
Image your self in Roddy Ricch’s state of affairs. You’re 21 years previous, and also you’ve received an opportunity to make an actual influence. Individuals have cash invested in you. They’ve hope invested in you. However nothing is assured. So you’re employed. You’re employed on a regular basis. You spend complete nights rapping, phrases tumbling out of your mouth till these phrases threaten to lose all which means. You’re all the way in which throughout the nation from your house, and also you’re on one among your artistic benders. It’s six or seven within the morning. Possibly the New York sky is purple simply earlier than daybreak. Possibly the solar is simply cracking the horizon. Your head is cloudy from exhaustion and possibly from no matter substances you utilize to push you thru these all-night classes. However you’re not achieved. You hear a beat, a dramatic string fanfare with some booming drums, and it ignites one thing in you. You assault that monitor, splashing your voice over it in patterns that not even you may predict. Whenever you’re achieved, you recognize that you’ve got made one thing particular. Nevertheless it nonetheless wants one thing. It wants the ee-urr.
Based on just about everybody who labored on “The Field,” the ee-urr was Roddy Ricch’s thought. The sound is his voice. He’d completed recording the tune, however he instructed his engineer and his A&R man that he simply added yet one more factor. He jumped again within the sales space and made that squeaky noise, the one which at all times seemed like a creaky door to me. I might like to know extra about what it takes to reach at that second — how drained you have to be, how excessive, how deep in your personal artistic course of, to comprehend that the ultimate contact your tune wants is a nonverbal loop of you imitating a really decided squirrel. Inspiration takes so many alternative varieties, and that’s one among them.
A lot of items needed to fall into place for Roddy Ricch to make that ee-urr. Possibly his entire life was divinely plotted out, main as much as that second. Rodrick Wayne Moore Jr. grew up shifting backwards and forwards between Los Angeles and Compton. (When Roddy was born, the Barenaked Women’ “One Week” was the #1 tune in America.) His father wasn’t round, and his mom raised him within the church — the identical church, because it occurred, that previous and future Quantity Ones artist Kendrick Lamar attended. When Roddy was a child, he received his braveness up and requested if he might rap some bars for Kendrick, and Kendrick mentioned encouraging issues. Roddy performed basketball and went to remedy, however he additionally received concerned in avenue life. He dedicated robberies, wrecked a automobile, and confronted a gun expenses. (Afterward, he was additionally charged with felony home violence, nevertheless it was dropped.) In a 2020 Rolling Stone profile, Roddy remembers the second, sitting in jail, that he realized he needed to determine his shit out. That, he says, is when he began taking rap critically.
Fairly quickly, rap itself was taking Roddy Ricch critically. There was by no means something significantly California about his sound. As a substitute. Roddy grew up on the skittering, moaning Atlanta lure of Future and Younger Thug, in addition to Lil Durk’s Chicago variation on that stuff. Speaker Knockerz, the South Carolina sing-rapper who died in what was in all probability a freak carbon monoxide accident at age 19 in 2014, was a specific inspiration. As a child, Roddy hung out in each Atlanta and Chicago, so possibly that’s a part of the explanation that he has by no means seemed like he’s from anybody explicit place. Or possibly that’s only a perform of the web.
Roddy belongs to a era the place area and surroundings didn’t at all times outline a rapper’s perspective. He developed a method — fast bursts of staccato syllables that stretch into elongated singsong gurgles, all delivered in a bluesy chirp-rap. Melody is constructed into his supply. He doesn’t sing, precisely, however his rapping at all times comes out sounding like singing. That was the pan-regional sound of street-rap within the late ’10s, and Roddy got here off like a blurry mixture of all the obvious influences. That meant that his personal persona might get misplaced, nevertheless it additionally meant that he was good at a specific factor.
Roddy Ricch’s debut mixtape Feed Tha Streets got here out in 2017, just some weeks after his nineteenth birthday. Individuals began to note. A few of his tracks went viral. Nipsey Hussle, a serious determine in West Coast rap, took Roddy underneath his wing. On the 2018 night time that former Quantity Ones artist XXXTentacion was murdered, Roddy recorded “Die Younger,” a basic lament about impermanence, over a twinkling beat from London On Da Monitor, a big-deal producer within the Atlanta lure world. That tune made sufficient noise to crack the Sizzling 100, the place it peaked at #99. Across the identical time, Roddy signed to Atlantic and launched his Feed Tha Streets II mixtape. He began displaying up on tracks with big-deal rappers, in addition to the masked dance producer Marshmello.
2019 was an enormous 12 months for Roddy Ricch. He began it out singing the hook on “Racks In The Center,” a single that Nipsey Hussle launched simply earlier than he was murdered. (After Nipsey’s passing, “Racks In The Center” peaked at #26. It’s Nipsey’s highest-charting single as lead artist.) Quickly after that, Roddy was named an XXL Freshman, a part of the identical class as future Quantity Ones artists DaBaby and Megan Thee Stallion. Close to the top of the summer time, the West Coast rap producer Mustard launched his album Good Ten, and its largest monitor was “Ballin’,” a solo showcase for Roddy Ricch. It’s a slick, exuberant, celebratory singalong that also rivals “The Field” as my favourite Roddy Ricch monitor, and it grew slowly for months, lastly peaking at #11 on the Sizzling 100 in January 2020. (“Ballin’” remains to be Mustard’s largest hit as lead artist. As a producer, he’ll ultimately seem on this column.)
Within the closing months of 2019, Roddy Ricch launched the singles meant for his precise debut album, and none of them had the identical spark as “Ballin’.” “Massive Stepper,” the Gunna collab “Begin Wit Me,” “Tip Toe” with A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie — these have been all strong street-rap tracks that sounded extraordinarily of their period. However even with B-list rap-star collaborators and expensive-looking movies, they didn’t stand out, although all of them charted. (“Massive Stepper” peaked at #98 on the Sizzling 100, “Begin Wit Me” at #56, “Tip Toe” at #73.) Roddy’s sound was a playlist-friendly amalgam of every part that was occurring in rap proper then, and his hooks had a method of sneaking up on you. His LP Please Excuse Me For Being Delinquent got here out in early December and moved about 100,000 album-equivalent models — ok to debut at #1 in a gradual week. A lot of folks streamed that album, and lots of of them evidently received caught on “The Field,” its first correct tune.
As soon as Mariah Carey’s “All I Need For Christmas Is You” ended the primary of its annual holiday-season runs at #1, the 2020 pop-music 12 months was supposed to begin with the return of a really huge identify. Justin Bieber, somebody who’s been on this column a bunch of instances and who will return, launched his newlywed-bliss meditation “Yummy,” his first correct solo single in a few years. “Yummy” received an enormous push, regardless of being an precise horrible tune. (It’s a 3.) Def Jam and Bieber’s highly effective supervisor Scooter Braun constructed a advertising and marketing marketing campaign round “Yummy,” and Bieber himself went public along with his flop-sweaty try and push the tune to #1. In an embarrassing second, Bieber reposted after which rapidly deleted an Instagram with a useful information for his followers to push “Yummy” to the highest. That publish requested Beliebers to purchase the only a number of instances and to construct playlists with the monitor on repeat, preserving these playlists operating all night time: “Don’t mute it! Play it at a low quantity. Let it play whilst you sleep.” It requested followers outdoors the US to purchase VPNs, so they may add to the monitor’s Billboard whole. It was simply unbelievably corny. You may think about the schadenfreude that a few of us felt when the first-week numbers got here in and “Yummy” received caught at #2 behind “The Field,” a non-single from a rookie rapper.
God, that was satisfying. When his chart victory was safe, Roddy Ricch tweeted, “stream yummy by justin bieber,” with the bicep-flex emoji. It was a lot enjoyable to root for him in that second. This was the very starting of the interval when fan armies mobilized on-line to help their favorites on the Sizzling 100, a phenomenon that’s going to play a task in method too many future columns. However all of the efforts of Def Jam, Scooter Braun, and the Beliebers weren’t sufficient to conquer this underdog banger that had one thing else in its favor. “The Field” had TikTok, and TikTok made all of the distinction. The tune didn’t latch onto anybody explicit TikTok pattern. Individuals danced to it, nevertheless it didn’t have its personal dance. They did comedy skits concerning the ee-urr, and people have been enjoyable, however I don’t assume they have been what turned “The Field” right into a juggernaut. For those who pull up compilation of TikTok clips set to “The Field” — there are many them — you may not see any explicit sample. It was only a cool, dramatic tune, and folks preferred the way in which that they seemed with it enjoying within the background.
Right here’s the place we get past the ee-urr and speak about how “The Field” is only a nice rap tune. Even with out the ee-urr, the cinematic swell of the intro catches you straight away. “The Field” has three credited producers, however the principle one appears to be Samuel Gloade, recognized professionally as 30 Roc, a Bronx native who got here up as a protege of Atlanta lure hitmaker Mike Will Made-It. 30 Roc first made an influence when he produced “Nasty Freestyle,” a freak viral smash that the Houston rapper T-Wayne launched in 2015. (“Nasty Freestyle” peaked at #9. It’s an 8.) Within the years that adopted, 30 Roc co-produced hits like “Rake It Up,” from Yo Gotti and Nicki Minaj, and “Bartier Cardi,” from Cardi B and 21 Savage. (“Rake It Up” peaked at #8. It’s a 7. “Bartier Cardi” peaked at #14.) There was by no means actually any explicit 30 Roc sound. He was only a producer you’d see in Wikipedia-page credit and assume, “Oh, that’s humorous, that man named himself after 30 Rock.” However the tracks I simply talked about all have a sure pop-friendly bounce, and I don’t actually hear that in “The Field.”
30 Roc co-produced “The Field” with two guys who don’t have quite a lot of credit to their names, Datboisqeeze and ZenTachi. There are a few different credited songwriters, too: Khirye Tyler, somebody who did quite a lot of work on the final Beyoncé album, and Larrance “Rance” Dopson, the co-founder of the musical collective 1500 Or Nothin’. I don’t know what these guys contributed to “The Field.” I do know that the opening orchestral flourish is Roland plug-in, a pre-recorded toy for producers. When 30 Roc and his collaborators discovered that sound, they knew they may construct one thing from it, and it actually does set an imposing temper. It seems like storm clouds gathering, helicopters taking off, tank engines rumbling to life. That swell of strings is blended method quieter than the ee-urr, however you may nonetheless really feel it. One thing is about to occur, after which one thing does. When the beat kicks in, it’s thunderous, partly as a result of Roddy Ricch begins rapping a split-second earlier than the primary drum-hit lands. It makes for an actual adrenaline-rush second.
“The Field” isn’t a tune about anybody explicit factor. There’s not even a lot consensus about what the titular field is. It’s in all probability a removable journal cartridge, nevertheless it may be jail. It’s in all probability not a vagina — not on this case, anyway. It’s positively not a cardboard field, although there’s a humorous bit within the video the place Roddy is rapping on a conveyor belt in a literal field manufacturing unit that’s populated fully by ladies in underwear. If Principal Skinner took Bart Simpson on a area journey to that field manufacturing unit, Bart may not be so upset. Anyway, you don’t have to know the connotations of every part that Roddy Ricch says on “The Field.” What the tune conveys is sheer exhilaration, the sensation of bending the world to your will. Even when Roddy talks about consuming codeine cough syrup and going into sloth mode — “pour up the entire rattling seal, I’ma get laaaaazy” — he seems like he’s received electrical energy coursing by way of him.
Roddy Ricch’s “The Field” lyrics are free-association, however he hits them with function. On the primary verse, he cruses the town in a bulletproof Cadillac, his stashbox stuffed with illicit substances, looking out for the folks attempting to rob him. Then he’s dunking along with his elbow within the rim like Vince Carter, bragging about how his lady seems to be like Aaliyah, and ready for the day when he will get the important thing to the town of Compton. His circulate lurches into totally different gears, typically hitting erratic pauses and peculiar emphases for impact: “I! Bought! The pink! Slip! All! My whips! Is key-less!” My favourite a part of the second verse is the bit the place he transitions from saying a run for nationwide workplace into placing a six-figure bounty on Trayvon Martin’s assassin after which getting proper again to avenue shit: “I’m a 2020 president caaaandidate/ I achieved put 100 bands on Zimmerman, shit/ I been shifting actual ganster, in order that’s why she picked a Crip/ Shawty name me Crisco ’trigger I pop my shit.” It’s extremely enjoyable to rap alongside to “The Field,” particularly on the climactic second the place Roddy enforces visitor etiquette: “Bitch, don’t put on no footwear in my home!” I don’t understand how he makes that line sound anthemic, however he does.
“The Field” struck a nerve. After the tune boxed Justin Bieber out of the #1 spot, it held onto that spot for a very long time. Roddy Ricch and Atlantic weren’t essentially prepared for “The Field” to change into what it turned. The world received behind that tune earlier than they did. However they tailored. Roddy and Christian Breslauer co-directed an insane video for “The Field,” which got here out a month after the tune reached #1. The video makes use of CGI to free-associate the way in which that Roddy does verbally on the tune. I might’ve most popular a extra bare-bones, atmospheric clip, nevertheless it’s enjoyable to see the goofy shit they provide you with — a Quick & Livid pastiche, a bank-vault heist, a halfassed re-staging of the final Scarface scene, an ending the place a tiny Roddy is trapped in a glass case at an artwork museum. Watching it seems like flipping by way of film channels whereas stoned.
Whereas “The Field” was caught at #1, the world modified. In the course of the tune’s tenure on prime, the COVID-19 virus swept internationally and arrived within the US. All the pieces shut down instantly in mid-March. 1000’s of individuals died day by day. Journeys to the grocery retailer felt like provide runs within the apocalypse. The sensation of facemask straps round your ears turned extraordinarily acquainted. The world modified, however folks nonetheless stored listening to “The Field.” That was a fucked up time, however I can hear “The Field” at this time with out flashing again on it too laborious. That in all probability says one thing concerning the tune’s sturdiness.
Not one of the different tracks from the Please Excuse Me For Being Delinquent album resonated like “The Field,” although one among them, the Mustard-produced “Excessive Vogue,” reached #20. The album nonetheless went double platinum, and “The Field” went diamond in 2021. Roddy Ricch turned a kind of rappers who reveals up on tracks with each different huge rapper, and a number of the songs that he appeared on turned hits. However the pleasure round Roddy was short-lived. It was bizarre. When his sophomore album Dwell Life Quick got here out in 2021, it appeared like no person was checking for Roddy Ricch anymore. The album didn’t even go gold. Lead single “Late At Night time” peaked at #20, and he hasn’t been again on the Sizzling 100 as lead artist since then. Roddy didn’t hit some sudden creative decline. He simply wasn’t sizzling anymore.
Final 12 months, Roddy Ricch was a shock visitor at Kendrick Lamar’s Pop Out live performance, and he received a heat reception, nevertheless it wasn’t something just like the hero’s welcome that Tyler, The Creator acquired. Just a few months later, Roddy sang backup vocals and received off one nice line — “fifty on me, don’t die tryin’ and shit” — on the extraordinarily easy Kendrick monitor “Dodger Blue,” which peaked at #11. Proper now, Roddy Ricch is simply 26, so he might at all times strike gold once more. However Roddy simply launched a brand new full-length referred to as The Navy Album final Friday, and I solely discovered of its existence as a result of I researched this piece, which isn’t a superb signal. He’s in all probability not going to overshadow the brand new Justin Bieber file this time.
Roddy Ricch by no means totally got here off as a star. He was only a man who had a second. That’s high-quality as a result of the second was nice. There are many rappers who do come off as stars however who won’t ever make a tune as huge or nearly as good as “The Field.” And anyway, Roddy Ricch’s second didn’t finish with “The Field.” In a guest-rapper function, he will likely be again on this column quickly.
GRADE: 9/10