Fetty Wap broke out in a major way in 2015, largely due to the success of his 4x Platinum single “Trap Queen,” but as quickly as he rose to the top is as quickly as he has fallen off.
In a new interview with Desus & Mero, the Paterson, New Jersey native opened up about his rise and fall over the past few years, going so far as to admit that not taking home awards at the 2015 GRAMMYs or the BET Awards really paid a toll on his psyche.
“When we had the nominations for the GRAMMYs and everything like that, and I think the BET Awards, and I lost that year, that took my spirit from the music world. I kind of shied back,” Fetty said. “It was one of them times in my life where everything was great. We had a top four, top 10 record, all that other shit going on, it was back-to-back shows, everybody’s life was changing, I’m gaining friends I never thought I would be around, [people] I met, Gucci Mane, all them other artists. I had a lot of support, Twitter, Instagram. All these other people were like, ‘Fetty Wap gotta win this year, he’s the best new artist, he’s got the best new song, that shit [going] around the world right now.’ And then boom… it kind of broke me down a little bit, I don’t know how else to put it.”
Fetty went on to explain that, for a period of time, he was down in the proverbial dumps. That is, until he recently had an unexpected conversation with an unnamed individual, who, he says, provided much-needed perspective:
“Just recently, somebody pulled me to the side, it was somebody I didn’t expect, and that was the spark. After I had that conversation, I sat back and started thinking to myself, and I asked myself: ‘What do you want to be? Do you want to go back home or do you want to be Fetty Wap?'”
Despite no longer topping charts or being at the forefront of conversation in hip-hop, Fetty stressed that he doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him. In addition to having earned three more Platinum plaques in 2017 (Fifth Harmony’s “All In My Head (Flex),” “Wake Up” and Kid Ink’s “Promise”), which brings his grand total to eight, the 300 Entertainment signee is still out on the road, earning a living.
“I’m still touring off of my same four songs,” he said.
All artists should be so lucky.