The 2020s File Feature
Walk Em Down
Walk Em Down: NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch's Billboard Breakthrough in 2020 "Walk Em Down" is a collaboration between Memphis rapper NLE Choppa, born Bryson La…
01 The Story
Walk Em Down: NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch's Billboard Breakthrough in 2020
"Walk Em Down" is a collaboration between Memphis rapper NLE Choppa, born Bryson Lashun Potts, and Compton rapper Roddy Ricch, born Rodrick Lavon Moore Jr. The song was released on April 24, 2020, as part of NLE Choppa's debut mixtape From Dark to Light, distributed through Warner Records. The track became the most commercially successful single of NLE Choppa's young career at the time of its release, propelling him from regional recognition to mainstream national visibility with a chart performance that reflected genuine mass audience engagement.
On the Billboard Hot 100, "Walk Em Down" peaked at number nine, making NLE Choppa one of the youngest rappers to place a song in the Hot 100 top ten. The song's arrival in the top ten during the spring of 2020 coincided with the early weeks of pandemic-related social distancing measures in the United States, a period when streaming consumption was significantly elevated as people spent more time at home. The production's high-energy, confrontational character made it particularly well-suited to the kind of focused, high-volume listening that characterized streaming behavior during this period.
Roddy Ricch's feature on "Walk Em Down" was particularly valuable given his extraordinary commercial momentum at the time. His single "The Box" had spent 11 consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 beginning in January 2020, making him one of the dominant forces in hip-hop during the first quarter of the year. His appearance on NLE Choppa's track carried with it both his enormous streaming audience and the credibility of the most commercially successful rapper in the country at that moment.
The production on "Walk Em Down" was handled by Dices, also known as Dices The Producer, who crafted a beat that combined the aggressive trap energy associated with Memphis rap with melodic elements that allowed both artists to sing-rap in the style that had become central to contemporary hip-hop. The beat features a distorted, bass-heavy rhythmic foundation over which melodic synthesizer elements create a slightly menacing atmosphere that suited the song's lyrical themes of street confrontation and unwillingness to back down from conflict.
NLE Choppa was born in 2002, making him seventeen years old when "Walk Em Down" was recorded and eighteen when it charted in the top ten. This youth was part of what made his commercial breakthrough so striking to industry observers: he represented the extreme young end of a generation of rappers who had grown up listening to SoundCloud rap and drill music and who were bringing those influences to a new commercial audience. His age at the time of the song's success placed him in a lineage of remarkably young rap artists who had achieved mainstream recognition, a tradition in hip-hop that has included artists from Lil Bow Wow to Lil Yachty.
The song's title, "Walk Em Down," refers to a street confrontation concept in hip-hop slang, describing the act of approaching an adversary directly rather than engaging from a distance. This lyrical territory, familiar from countless rap records, is treated by both NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch with the kind of committed energy and vocal presence that elevates the song above the generic conventions of its subject matter. Both artists deliver their verses with a physicality and urgency that makes the recording feel alive rather than formulaic.
The music video for "Walk Em Down" accumulated hundreds of millions of views on YouTube, becoming one of the most-watched rap videos of 2020 and contributing significantly to the song's streaming numbers and chart longevity. The video's production values and visual energy matched the song's aggressive character and helped establish NLE Choppa's visual identity as an artist at a critical early stage in his career.
From Dark to Light, the mixtape project that housed "Walk Em Down," reflected NLE Choppa's stated personal evolution during this period. He had publicly discussed his interest in wellness, spiritual development, and moving away from the violent themes that had characterized some of his earlier music, making the commercial success of "Walk Em Down," a more aggressive track, a somewhat ironic centerpiece for a project framed around personal growth. This tension between artistic persona and personal evolution was one of the more discussed aspects of NLE Choppa's career during 2020.
The collaboration between NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch on "Walk Em Down" represented a meeting of two of the most commercially significant young rappers in the country at a moment when both were at or near the peaks of their initial commercial breakthroughs. For NLE Choppa, the song's success validated his potential as a mainstream commercial artist and opened doors that subsequent projects would work to consolidate. For Roddy Ricch, it demonstrated his ability to extend his commercial reach through high-profile features even as his own solo work continued to dominate the charts.
The song's peak at number nine on the Hot 100 represented one of the more surprising chart achievements of 2020's first half, coming from an artist who had been largely unknown outside of Memphis and dedicated rap circles just a year earlier. The speed of NLE Choppa's ascent, accelerated dramatically by the Roddy Ricch feature and the platform provided by Warner Records, made "Walk Em Down" a frequently cited example of how quickly streaming-era success could transform a regional artist into a national commercial force.
02 Song Meaning
The Meaning of "Walk Em Down": Confrontation, Youth, and the Contradiction at the Heart of NLE Choppa's 2020
"Walk Em Down" by NLE Choppa featuring Roddy Ricch operates within one of hip-hop's oldest and most persistent thematic traditions: the declaration of territorial dominance and willingness to engage in street conflict without retreat or hesitation. The phrase "walk em down," in the vocabulary of contemporary trap and drill music, describes a direct, forward-moving approach to confrontation, the opposite of avoidance or de-escalation. Both NLE Choppa and Roddy Ricch deliver their verses with the kind of committed intensity that the theme demands, and the song's power as a listening experience comes largely from the quality of that commitment.
Understanding what the song means requires grappling with a productive contradiction at its center. NLE Choppa, the song's primary artist, had been publicly and sincerely discussing his personal evolution during the period leading up to and including the release of From Dark to Light. He spoke in interviews about his interest in holistic wellness, plant-based diet, spiritual practice, and a genuine desire to move his artistic output away from the violent themes that had characterized his earlier work. "Walk Em Down," with its confrontational energy and street-conflict subject matter, seems to sit in tension with that stated evolution, and this tension is not a flaw in the song but a reflection of a genuine complexity in the artist's situation.
Young rappers from communities shaped by street culture and violence often navigate a complicated relationship between their lived experience, their artistic persona, and their stated aspirations for personal growth. The authenticity demanded by hip-hop culture, which requires that an artist's music reflect their actual experience and values, can come into conflict with personal development that moves in a different direction. NLE Choppa's 2020 represents one of the more publicly visible versions of this tension: an artist openly committed to personal growth whose most commercially successful music drew on the precise themes he was trying to move beyond.
Roddy Ricch's contribution to the song brings its own set of meanings. As the most commercially dominant rapper in the country during the first quarter of 2020, his presence on "Walk Em Down" carried institutional weight that went beyond his individual verse. He validated NLE Choppa's commercial potential and his right to occupy the highest levels of contemporary hip-hop, and he did so by delivering a verse that matched the song's energy without overwhelming or upstaging the younger artist. This kind of generosity in feature collaboration, giving a younger artist exactly enough elevation without taking over the record, is its own form of communication in the social economy of hip-hop.
The production's role in the song's meaning should not be overlooked. The beat crafted by Dices creates an atmosphere of aggressive forward momentum that mirrors the lyrical theme of walking down an opponent. The bass weight, the rhythmic drive, and the melodic elements that hover above the foundation all contribute to a sonic environment that makes the listener feel the physical energy of confrontation and the particular adrenaline of not backing down. This is music that understands its own bodily effect and deploys it deliberately.
For the audience of young people who drove "Walk Em Down" to the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, the song offered something specific: the pleasure of vicarious defiance. Many of the song's listeners were themselves navigating institutions, expectations, and social pressures that demanded compliance and accommodation, and the song's celebration of unyielding direct confrontation offered a temporary release from those pressures. This is one of the oldest functions of aggressive music, from heavy metal to gangsta rap to drill: providing listeners with a sonic space in which the defiant responses they cannot safely act on in daily life are given full-throated expression.
The song also functions as a document of a very specific generational moment in American hip-hop: the period around 2019 and 2020 when the Memphis rap tradition, with its characteristic blend of aggression and melody, was achieving mainstream commercial recognition through artists like NLE Choppa, Moneybagg Yo, and others. "Walk Em Down" carries this regional DNA while presenting it in a form polished enough to reach a national mainstream audience, and that combination of regional authenticity and mainstream accessibility is itself a significant part of what the song means in the longer history of Memphis music's relationship with the national rap industry.
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