Just a week after dropping his third studio album, SoulFly, Rod Wave appeared as a guest on the latest episode of Apple Music 1’s The Plug Radio, which aired Friday morning on Rap Life Live.
During his discussion with hosts Eddie Francis and Nick Nuk’em, Wave revealed he was originally featured on “Lemon Pepper Freestyle,” a standout track from Drake’s recently released Scary Hours 2 EP.
“I supposed to be on [“Lemon Pepper Freestyle”] but I didn’t like how my verse came out. So I kind of scratched it,” the St. Petersburg rapper said, as pointed out by HipHop-N-More. “I didn’t like how my voice came out and you know with a Drake feature, you don’t want to, you know what I’m saying? It’s like my first thing, it’s a big deal, have to come with it, you know what I’m saying? All that. I kind of had got cold feet, so kind of shook me up a little bit. So I was like don’t worry about it.”
You’d be hard pressed to find another Drake song better tailored to Wave’s blusey style than “Lemon Pepper Freestyle,” what with its soulful sample of Danish R&B duo Quadron’s 2009 song “Pressure.”
Asked if he’ll appear on Drake’s forthcoming Certified Lover Boy album, Wave said no, clarifying it was just “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” that he was in the mix for.
The interview arrives just days after Wave’s SoulFly received optimistic sales projections, with Hits Daily Double predicting a No. 1 debut atop the Billboard 200 chart and 125,000 to 150,000 total album equivalent units notched in its first week.
You can stream SoulFly now on all major platforms.
