Artist POV: From FedEx To Jimmy Fallon, Ro$ama Is Just Getting Started

Ro$ama amassed a following city by city, gaining support on a grassroots level without a social media engagement-driven playbook. 

The Paris, Texas, native first gained momentum after shooting a music video while on the clock at FedEx. The rapper was fired as a result. 

That also led to the music video going viral. After that, Ro$ama never let up: a run of prolific tapes followed, including the fan-favorite Ground Zero, a five-city “Orange Tape Tour” across Texas, a Rolling Loud debut, and even a performance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

This year’s 6WA project has kept Ro in constant discussion online and in the streets. Now, with a new album, My Forte, arriving soon, Ro$ama sat down with Pollstar to talk about where the name 6WA came from, studying JAŸ-Z and 2Pac albums to sharpen his pen, and what he still wants to learn about performing live.

Pollstar: Walk me through your story; how does a young guy from Paris, Texas, end up believing he could become a rapper, and then actually pull it off?

Ro$ama: I’ve been rapping since I was 9. I used to play 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, and after you beat the game you get the instrumentals …so I’d play them out loud on the TV, hit record on a little cassette player and freestyle until the beat was over, then pause and do it again. That turned into Mixcraft, then Pro Tools once I figured out how to actually record myself.

I moved to Dallas at 12 and stopped for a bit … went to college, played ball, but I was still recording on the side. After college, I went to the studio after work. We made a song called “Strange Fruit,” and it started picking up. I recorded a video on the job at FedEx and posted it on Dallas Global, and it went crazy. That was around 2019 or 2020.

Was that the moment you knew rapping wasn’t a hobby anymore but maybe something more?

Kind of … but really, the moment was when they fired me for that FedEx video (laughs). I didn’t have anything else. I was like, “All right, this is it.”

6WA doesn’t feel like a flash in the pan; it feels like y’all did your homework. How did the project come together?

We were in North Carolina for a birthday bash and already planning a tape, but we didn’t have a name. We were throwing out ideas, and I can’t remember who came up with the idea, but someone said NWA, and it turned into 6WA, since there are six of us. At the time, the police were on everybody, so it made sense, and it was also a way to pay homage to where hip-hop started. The first song we made for the tape was “600 Degrees,” while we were on tour. We didn’t expect “6WA” to sound the way it did (laughs); we figured we’d just put our own spin on it like always. But once Tony made the “6WA” beat, everybody felt like, this is it, this is what we’re supposed to do. I grew up on West Coast music, so it was easy for me to tap into that sound.

The jump in your artistry from Menace to Society in 2018 to the Orange Tape and now 6WA is night and day. What were the mental reps that got you there?

Sitting down and studying music, man, really listening to what people were saying and how they played with their voice and their delivery. I went back through JAŸ-Z and listened to Blueprint 2 and Blueprint 3, watched all of 2Pac’s documentaries, even the 1992 one. That was my version of reps: going back, listening, figuring out what I could pull from them and bring into my own work.

That evolution followed you from the booth to the stage. What did you study to build your live show for the “Orange Tape tour?

We’d already been performing in front of one person, three people, five, 10, 100…that’s how it started. Going on tour with Key Glock and Kevin Gates, I watched them perform, and even now, whenever I’m at a show and someone else is on, I watch and see, study them, see what I can take for my own show. That slow backward walk I do…I got that from Glock. The jumping up and down to the beat and then lashing out, that’s Kevin Gates. I picked up little things from everybody and made them mine.

What was the intention behind the “Orange Tape Tour,” and do you think you accomplished it?

Just to be in people’s faces more. Some people know the music, especially with 6WA, but don’t know the face, so I intended to put a face to the music. I felt like I did that pretty well, especially across Texas.

You made your Rolling Loud debut this past May. How did that feel, going from performing for a handful of people to a sea of thousands from all over the world?

It felt great, honestly; that moment felt manifested and aligned. I used to stand on my bed with an air mic and perform for nobody, stand on playground slides and perform to the grass like it was 1,000 people. So it felt like something I’d already lived out in my head, finally happening for real. I can’t wait to do that again. Especially headlining Bonnaroo one day.

When I make music, I always think about how I’m going to perform it live … where the breaths go, how the beat feels, whether people are going to be bouncing or in the pit. Every time I make a song, I ask myself if it would be a good one to perform live.

You also performed on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” How did that preparation compare to a festival set?

Honestly, the preparation was the same. It’s a new audience, so I want to make a statement, same as anywhere I haven’t played before. The only thing that hit different was knowing my mom was watching me on TV. I had my people around me, so it still felt comfortable. It was a great experience. But it did open my eyes to something like performing with a live band. I want to know what that experience is like, hearing every instrument live instead of over a track, and performing on top of that. I feel like that would be a whole new experience for my career.