Ro$ama's My Forte Puts the East Texas Pen Out Front

By Odessa Vance, October 6, 2026

Partway through "E.T.," the opening track on Ro$ama's debut album, the beat switches, and he doesn't drop the thread. He explained the move to Newsweek: the slower first half gave him room to "build up" the story, and then, "When the beat switched, I was like, I can pop it and keep the story going as well." It's a small craft decision, and it's My Forte in miniature. Here's a writer who has spent years inside other people's songs, now showing he can carry a long one by himself.

That's why this is the record I'm putting in front of you. Not the guest list, though it's a strong one. It's a pen that has worked in the background of the new Texas sound finally getting the whole frame.

Why now

My Forte came out September 11, 2026 through 600 Entertainment under exclusive license to UnitedMasters: 20 songs in about 40 minutes, per its Apple Music listing. Apple's editors summed it up in one line, "The East Texas rapper goes from strength to strength," and the album page lists it as featured on Apple's The New Texas playlist. The tracklist brings in BigXthaPlug on "Picc Ah Side," Big Savage on "Light Show" and "Stucc In Da Trapp," and Houston's own Monaleo on "Bolaji." Monaleo also shows up on "WYO" from Karrahbooo's NOT DA 2, another fall release worth your time.

Ro$ama: E.T.

Most of what has been written about the album so far is interviews and release-day posts. HotNewHipHop's release write-up called him "a great beat selector" with "a long runway to becoming a household name." I agree with the runway part. I'd just argue the album is already the first stretch of it, and it deserves to be heard as an album, not a playlist feeder.

The title carries its own story. "I called it that because it's my mom's last name, it's a music note, and it's something you're good at," he told Rolling Out ahead of the release.

Where he's coming from

Ro$ama is from Paris, Texas. He told Pollstar he has been rapping since he was nine, freestyling over video-game instrumentals into a cassette recorder, and that he moved to Dallas at 12. His first real momentum came from a music video he shot on the clock at FedEx. It went viral, and it got him fired. "I didn't have anything else," he said. "I was like, 'All right, this is it.'" Rolling Out dates his breakout to 2022's "Federal Express."

From there the story runs through 600 Entertainment and BigXthaPlug. Newsweek notes that the February 2026 group project 6WA put him alongside BigXthaPlug, MurdaGang PB and Yung Hood. Ro$ama described his role before that project this way: "I felt like I was in the room, but people didn't notice me." His press materials, reprinted by Attack the Culture, credit him with a third BMI Award for his songwriting on BigXthaPlug's "The Largest." Per Pollstar, the last year also brought a five-city Orange Tape Tour across Texas, a Rolling Loud debut in May, and a performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

That's the lineage worth naming: his press materials place him in "the new wave shaping the modern DFW sound," with BigXthaPlug out front and a writer from East Texas holding a pen behind it. The Third Coast has always had room for rappers who get there by craft rather than volume, and Ro$ama talks about craft like a technician. It's the same lane we flagged with Houston's iAMLYRIC on BLKBRD.

The method

"I write backwards," he told Newsweek. "I find my last bar of the four-bar setup, and I work backwards." The punchline comes first, and the three bars in front of it are built to land it. Newsweek's Devin Robertson wrote that the method is why his verses "can feel architectural," and that's the right word for a 20-track debut that, by his own account, was meant to show range: "I was trying to do different types of topics and skill-based songs to show I can do a lot of things."

My opinion: a writer who builds verses backward from the landing is a writer whose songs reward a second pass. You catch the setup the first time and the payoff the second. That's replay value, and it's the only metric I trust.

Three songs to hear

Ro$ama: My Forte

"E.T." This is the opener, and the most personal song on the album by his own account. "One of the songs I cried on writing," he told Rolling Out, naming the intro, "because I haven't talked about a certain situation to no one before." The beat switch is the detail to listen for. The video was shot throughout Dallas, with his twin daughters and his mother appearing, according to the album's press release. The Needle Drop also covered the clip.

"93." Per Newsweek, this is the track that "turns toward the conditions surrounding his hometown." It's the community-portrait counterweight to the autobiography of "E.T.," and it closes the album.

"Dangerous." When Rolling Out asked which song to play first if you only had time for one, he answered "Probably DANGEROUS." It's also one of three songs from the album with an official video on Apple Music, alongside "E.T." and "CBFW." When an artist tells you which one to start with, start there.

What to watch

Nothing about the next project has been announced, so I won't guess. What he has said is that he hopes to be "back on tour" by the fourth quarter, per Rolling Out, and his press materials name him the face of True Religion's On Tour Concert Series in Houston. His own summary of the moment, given to Newsweek, is the line I keep coming back to: "6WA was like the preseason, like trying to make the cut. Now I finally got y'all attention."

The regular season starts with a 20-track album that a lot of people haven't sat with yet. Sit with it.

Odessa Vance called it first: Ro$ama, October 5, 2026. Run back "E.T."