Russian Roulette Lyrics – Lil Poppa

Russian Roulette Lyrics Meaning

[Intro]
“This is how life feels for me right now.”

[Verse]
The song opens with Lil Poppa expressing how he pretends to be fine when people ask about his well-being, but in reality, he’s not okay. He feels like no one genuinely cares or can help him, so he puts on a fake smile to hide his struggles. He’s surrounded by fake love, people who don’t truly support him but act like they do. He doesn’t even feel safe in his environment and has been using pills daily to cope with the pain. He tells others that these pills help him, but instead of understanding, they call him crazy. His emotions are difficult to put into words, and he feels misunderstood.

People keep telling him to keep pushing forward like his struggles don’t matter, but they don’t know what it’s like to be in his position. He’s the one performing on stage every night, carrying the weight of expectations, singing his songs back to back without a break. There’s no hype man to lift him up—it’s just him, alone, dealing with everything. When people say, “It’s going to be okay,” it doesn’t mean much to him because he has told himself that over and over again, yet nothing seems to change.

For Lil Poppa, winning in life often feels like pretending. He’s not an actor, but he’s gotten really good at faking happiness. Even though he’s not rushing toward death, he questions when all this pain and struggle will finally end. He sees depression as his best friend, something that has been with him for so long that he almost accepts it as part of who he is. Society expects men to be tough, to take every hit in life without showing emotion, but he rejects that idea. He believes men should be allowed to feel and express their emotions instead of hiding them.

At times, he dreams of escaping—living in Japan or going to Africa, the Motherland, where he feels like he might belong more. He apologizes to his fans because no matter how much they support him, they’ll never truly understand what he’s going through behind the scenes. The pressure, the pain, the loneliness—it’s something only he can feel. He paints a dark image of himself sitting alone in the dark with a gun in his hand, contemplating dangerous thoughts. He compares his situation to playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun, questioning what would happen if he pulled the trigger.

Despite these thoughts, he reminds himself that he has a child to live for. If it weren’t for his kid, he might have already left everything behind. He’s not blaming anyone else for his struggles—it’s just something inside him that he has to deal with. He just wants to be free, so much so that he throws his phone into the ocean because the only time people call him is when they need something from him. Nobody checks on him just to see if he’s okay.

Even though he’s still breathing and surviving, it hasn’t been easy. If he were to say it was, he’d be lying. When people can’t control someone great, they start to hate them—he uses Chris Brown as an example of how the industry and the world can turn against someone who doesn’t conform to expectations. Despite his talent and success, people pretend not to see him or acknowledge his hard work.

Grief is something he carries with him every day, and he knows it will never go away. He refuses to let evil take his soul—no matter what demons try to drag him down, he won’t give in. He doesn’t care about money or what people say about him. He’s tired of dealing with the music industry and is ready to leave his record label. He doesn’t feel like he’s being treated right, and no amount of money can change that.

He reflects on the things he’s done in life, knowing that some of it he has to take to the grave. He hopes that those who have passed away can be forgiven for their mistakes. Life isn’t a game—if you make the wrong choices, you have to pay the price. He doesn’t want to deal with his pain today, so he puts it off, but deep down, he knows it will come back eventually. Pain isn’t something you can just run from forever.

He mentions his “main man,” someone who truly understands him and his struggles. In his city, there’s a lot of love, but at the same time, there are people waiting to bring him down. The streets don’t care about him, and he doesn’t care about their opinions either. He knows how dangerous the world can be, and he warns others to do their research before getting involved in things they don’t understand.

There are people who threaten him, talking about what they’re going to do to him, and right now, he’s feeling angry. He’s dealing with depression and stress every single day. But instead of seeing his struggles as failures, he sees them as lessons. He knows that God has blessed him, but he’s not afraid to admit that sometimes he questions his faith. With everything he’s been through, it’s hard not to wonder why things happen the way they do.

He’s been on the road for three years, working nonstop, yet he feels like he has nothing to show for it. He’s on the edge of losing his mind, but from the outside looking in, people call him ungrateful. They don’t see how much he’s appreciated everything he’s worked for, but at the same time, he feels like his own health and happiness have been ignored. It’s like people only care about what he can give them, not how he’s feeling.

He wonders if people will only start to care once he’s gone. But even then, after a week of fake crying, they’ll probably move on like nothing happened. That’s just how the world works. He’s tired of people saying they’re with him when, in reality, he’s facing everything alone. He knows that one day, when he’s no longer around, people will finally see what he’s been going through all along.