It’s a crisp November night outside Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, and inside, Rod Wave has a sold-out audience of 12,000 hanging on his every word. As the 25-year-old rapper-singer nears the end of performing “Come See Me,” one of several hits off his 2023 blockbuster, Nostalgia, he pauses and walks toward a ladder that’s part of his stage design. Screams of “Don’t do it, Rod!” commence. “You have so much to live for!” yells a teenage girl near me.

Undeterred by the cautionary cries, the burly locomotive of a man begins his ascent. As he climbs, a thunderous roar erupts and buries the shrieking voice next to me whose pleas go unanswered. Standing on the edge of the stage balcony 15 feet up, Rod surveys the crowd before plummeting onto a landing pad. The lights go out and the song comes to a screeching halt. Fans in the crowd play a quick round of “Where’s Rod?” to locate the Florida megastar — who soon reemerges, Superman-like, without a scratch on his teddy bear face.

Like everything Rod does, this wasn’t a stunt for clicks or social media fodder. It was much more profound than that: He has struggled in the past with depression and anxiety and has always been open about having had suicidal thoughts, especially in the song’s music video. “That was from a dream I had,” Rod explains of the stage fall days after the show. “When I come out, walk onstage and look at [the ladder], it’s really to show people, ‘Don’t get up and do that when you can do this. You don’t know where life can take you.’ I’m walking out to a whole arena full of people looking back up at me. Imagine [if] I would’ve [gone through with committing suicide]. I would’ve never made it to this part. There’s a whole meaning behind it — a bigger picture.”

Since Rod entered the hip-hop scene with his debut album, Ghetto Gospel, in 2019, his penchant for soul-grabbing lyrics and entrancing hooks has made him a beloved figure. His breakthrough single, the album’s “Heart on Ice,” was as chilling as its title suggests. Rod’s gruff takes about backstabbers and broken friendships earned widespread praise, including from his heroes-turned-peers Lil Baby, 21 Savage and Lil Durk, who appeared on the song’s remix. “Heart on Ice” became Rod’s Billboard Hot 100 debut, peaking at No. 25 — the first of 70 entries on the chart he has accrued since.

While many of today’s biggest hip-hop acts like Travis Scott and Playboi Carti thrive on mosh-pit anthems, Rod has stuck to his roots as an unabashed lover, using music to express his heartbreak and inner turmoil. His ability to hopscotch among genres has become his hallmark and the secret to his success, and he hit a new artistic apex on Nostalgia, which debuted with 137,000 equivalent album units in September, according to Luminate — a career best. Whether he’s contemplating his road to fame on “Long Journey” or reimagining himself as a tragic literary hero on the love-drunk “Great Gatsby,” Rod’s versatility is always evident.

“Rod pioneered this lane of struggle rap, which, given his age, is pretty incredible,” says Todd Moscowitz, CEO of Rod’s label, Alamo Records. “He’s one of the great songwriters of his generation and channels emotion and vulnerability in a unique way that people relate to. He has half of the NFL in tears on Instagram when he drops a single.”

Since Ghetto Gospel, Rod’s subsequent three albums — 2021’s SoulFly, 2022’s Beautiful Mind and Nostalgia — have topped the Billboard 200, making him the third artist to nab at least three No. 1s on the chart since the start of 2021. The only others are Taylor Swift and Drake.

“Being compared to Taylor Swift, you can’t even wrap your head around that kind of sh-t,” Rod says. “I remember ninth grade, being on my school bus listening to ‘Blank Space.’ Being in these conversations, it don’t really hit you. I was just on the sidelines. Now I’m really in the game. I went from the nosebleeds to the franchise player of the team with three rings.”

Rod Wave’s first-ever performance was at a high school football teammate’s birthday party in 2015. At the time, the artist born Rodarius Green was a budding rapper from St. Petersburg, Fla., working at Krispy Kreme. He enjoyed listening to 2Pac, Kodak Black and Kanye West but also appreciated the soulful pop sensibilities of Adele and Ed Sheeran. That eclectic musical taste helped him find his voice — one that spoke to the harsh street realities he and his family survived.

Both his father and uncle served time in prison. Rod, too, had problems on the streets and was charged with armed robbery at 15. After spending several months in jail, his father looked to instill discipline in him. “I started playing football because I got in trouble, and my dad wanted me to do something better with my free time,” Rod explains. “So when I got out of jail, he put me in football. It was just a new thing for me. It’s a lot of discipline I learned then that I carry with me now.”

While Rod enjoyed the camaraderie that came from working in the trenches with teammates, his true passion was music. A singer without any vocal training, he would showcase his talents between classes at Lakeview High School, the hallways becoming his stage. Yet the confidence Rod exuded when he belted for his peers disappeared when it came to actually recording his music and uploading it online — until his classmate and former producer, Elijah Simmons, took matters into his own hands, recording a video of him singing in the hallway one day and posting it on Facebook.

Though Rod feared rejection, to his surprise, the video caught the attention of one of his football teammates, who later asked him at practice to perform at his birthday party. At the time, Rod didn’t have a car and wasn’t getting paid to perform — but the thought of doing so for the first time in front of his classmates, especially the girls, was motivation enough. “I walked to that motherf–ker. I was 17,” Rod remembers, chuckling. “You don’t really know if your stuff is good enough at the time. I didn’t want to think that I was one of them people who think they raw. I was [wondering] like, ‘Am I really good?’ ”

Rod soon went from booking birthday parties to hole-in-the-wall Florida clubs, and his stock began to rise — so much so that fans would recognize him when pulling up to the Krispy Kreme drive-thru. Shyness usually got the best of him; he shrugged off questions about his rapping alter ego when he was on the clock. Balancing high school, a growing rap career and a part-time job was a lot for a teenager, and after his father, Rodney “Fatz” Green, saw the focused hunger in his son, he wanted to lend his support. Green and Rod’s uncle Derek Lane forged Hit House Entertainment — Rod’s own label — to help him realize his rap dreams. With Lane designated as management, they leaned on Rod as their franchise player.

From December 2017 to December 2018, Rod released his acclaimed mixtape trilogy, Hunger Games, which featured songs like “Pain,” “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Heart 4 Sale” that portrayed the daily pain Rod endured. The music garnered millions of listens and eventually caught the attention of Alamo Records’ Moscowitz.

Founded in 2016, Alamo wasn’t initially a first-class destination for rap powerhouses. That changed when it signed Lil Durk and Rod two years later. (As part of its deal with Rod, Alamo established a partnership with Hit House.) Before signing with Alamo, Durk had spent five years at Def Jam and was looking for a change of scenery to help elevate his career. Rod and Durk soon became the twin giants of Alamo, evolving into Billboard chart-toppers and streaming goliaths who quickly came to define hip-hop in a new decade.

“The other day, I had to text Durk, ‘I’ve been listening to you since middle school.’ I was able to DM him and [watch it] land. He was just like, ‘You hard, too!’ I was just like, ‘I been listening to you. I f–k with you. I rock with you,’ ” Rod says with a child-like smile. “When you in the moment and you meet people face-to-face, it slips my mind because I have to be Rod Wave. F–k all that. I’m a fan. I’ve been listening to your sh-t.”

Durk isn’t the only star who has left Rod awestruck. Drake and Sheeran have praised his accomplishments, especially the latter. On Beautiful Mind, Rod interpolated Sheeran’s “U.N.I.” from his debut album for his song “Alone.” The track caught the attention of Sheeran, who first met Rod after WPWR (Power 105.1) New York radio host Charlamagne Tha God learned of the rapper’s adoration for the pop giant.

“Ed’s a phenomenal guy. That’s one of my favorite artists. He’s just real people,” Rod says. “When you looking at it from a fan point of view, they don’t even feel like real people. It’s like you know them, but they’re like figures in your mind. They don’t even feel reachable.”

The MGM National Harbor Hotel in Washington, D.C., holds special significance to Rod. It’s where he’s staying after performing at the city’s Capital One Arena the night before. It’s also where he first learned about the coronavirus. Rod was just seven dates into his first headlining tour when he played D.C. on March 9, 2020, and news about a national lockdown derailed his planned nationwide trek. “My dream got shut down just like that,” he remembers, still sounding dejected. “I always wanted to go on tour, travel America, see the cities and get paid to do it. When I first was able to do it, it got took away from me.”

The pandemic tested Rod’s patience. He landed a coveted performance slot on NPR’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, but that paled in comparison with the venues he had been filling. Still, the thought of hitting the road and being with his fans again fueled him. Rod’s mission was clear: Get back on tour. But before he could do that, he had to fulfill a different calling: becoming a first-time father to his newborn twin girls.

“I [won’t] lie: [Fatherhood] made me softer. Back then, I could just move and feel nothing. Now I feel like they made me a little weaker,” he says while his kids hang out in the next room. “I can’t do that. I have to get home. I’ll be gone with my homeboys for three days or on the road for a week, and I’m just like, ‘We have to get a jet and fly the kids.’ ”

Instead of fatherhood being a hurdle, it motivated Rod, especially when touring resumed. In 2021, he came back stronger than ever, notching his first Billboard 200 No. 1 album with SoulFly and two top 20 Hot 100 hits in “Tombstone” and “Street Runner.” He realized his wish of returning to the road, but this time — with the help of powerhouse hip-hop festival promoter Rolling Loud, which in 2021 launched a national touring branch of its business with Rod as its first tour — he was playing amphitheaters, a step up from the clubs and theaters of his previous tour.

“We’ve witnessed his evolution from the start, and what sets him apart is his unwavering consistency,” Rolling Loud co-founder Matt Ziegler says. “His music consistently reaches a high standard, accompanied by impassioned performances that have become his trademark. As we observed his skyrocketing music consumption and the widespread acclaim for his shows, it inspired us to acquire his SoulFly tour, leading to the launch of our Rolling Loud Presents division.”

Ziegler’s Rolling Loud partner, Tariq Cherif, calls Rod’s success “truly unique; he diligently tours during key moments, aligning with new releases, and he remains authentically himself. His vulnerability, artistic authenticity and genuine connection with people set him apart. When we organized his tour, many doubted he could fill amphitheaters, but he defied expectations by selling out most dates.”

And Rod was already thinking bigger: He wanted arenas. Notching his second and third Billboard 200 No. 1s — Beautiful Mind in August 2022 and Nostalgia in September 2023 — helped him fulfill that dream. Seeing thousands of people of different ages and races singing his songs in a bonfire-like experience at his concerts excited Rod and his team. “His shows are like going to karaoke with 15,000 people,” Moscowitz says. “Everyone sings along and there’s a real sense of community.”

“What we figured out is where his core fans are and where they are going to support [him]. Then we’d mix the routing in to get to these places that make sense,” adds Beau Williams, Rod’s touring manager. “Even going through this, we found some diamonds in the rough in a lot of these cities that a lot of artists can’t go to the way he’s doing great numbers.” And with his zealous fans behind him, Rod’s goals continue to widen: His eyes are now set on stadium touring and Grammy Awards.

“This is the new chapter. People catching on slowly but surely,” Rod says. “That’s why I say in four or five years, we’ll probably be in stadiums selling 250,000 [tickets] the first week. That’s what I’m here for — Grammys and sh-t.”

This story will appear in the Dec. 9, 2023, issue of Billboard.