It’s official — Rod Wave has the number one album in the country. Billboard has confirmed that the 19-track SoulFly has landed in the top spot on the U.S. 200 chart. SoulFly’s first week was the best thus far for an R&B/hip hop album this year. The St. Petersburg, Florida singer with the velvet vocals accumulated 130,000 album equivalent units this past week, according to MRC Data.

As previously predicted by Hits Daily Double, Rod Wave scored his first number one album and its sales nearly doubled last year’s Pray 4 Love debut. Pray 4 Love landed at number two on the U.S. Billboard 200 with 72,000 album equivalent units.

In an interview on Friday (April 2) with Apple Music’s “Rap Life” show, Wave discussed his approach to songwriting and how he overcame his own self doubt in the beginning of his career.

“When I’m writing that shit, I’m really writing it for me,” he said. “I’m writing it like nobody else gon’ hear it. You know what I’m saying? That’s why it be so personal — I write music for me.”

The soulful songwriter didn’t always believe he’d have a number one album one day. One of his lowest moments took place early on in his career. Wave said that he used to watch 106 & Park and think about how he looked nothing like the artists featured on the countdown. “I’m nothing like them,” he said. “I don’t look like them, I don’t feel like them … I used to love rap music as a kid but as I got older, I just started to hate it when I started to see it for what it was.”

Thankfully, the platinum selling artist with just one guest feature on his album, is a lot more confident these days. He’s sure of himself and knows that he makes songs that people are attracted to. “One thing I realize about this shit is when people hear my music they don’t go nowhere,” he said. “Once they hear it, they stuck. The fans never gon’ go nowhere. It’s real shit. It’s real life.”