Since her early days as a Maryland teenager uploading aggressive, trap-influenced music on Soundcloud, rapper Rico Nasty has carved out her own unique place as a colorful rager. Yet, when she spoke to Rolling Stone this past February to announce her third studio album, Lethal, the 27-year-old phenom revealed that she was branching out past the wild persona that hip-hop fans have come to know during her rise.
“I was walking past the mirror, and I had on my fuzzy leg warmers, my big platforms, and I looked like a 17-year-old raver. I looked at myself and I said, ‘This just isn’t me anymore’,” she said.
Since her last album, 2022’s Las Ruinas, Rico Nasty has experienced a career disruption (parting ways with her creative team) and continued growing into her role as a mom. The album-closing “Smile” poignantly sums up where her priorities lie: “Scrape your knee, I’ll be there/Tuck you in your favorite pair/At the park in costume/I don’t care what other parents do,” she sings with an emotional rasp, addressing her son. That more introspective tone comes through in the track’s soft-rock feel as well. Elsewhere, songs like “You Could Never” show her reflecting on how far she’s come: “Made it from sock hop to China, Belize/I buy my little cousins whatever they need/I still wear a seat belt whenever I speed/Cuz I know that I got a village to feed.”
That doesn’t mean she’s slowing down. Lethal is still the kind of rowdy celebration of femininity and bold, sexual fluidity that’s been her calling card. The bright, sparkly, girl’s-girl anthem “Pink” finds Rico saluting female friendships with few boundaries as she sings, “My bitch, she loves pink/Keep her lashes by the sink.”
Lethal is a lean and neat package, containing some of Rico Nasty’s most refined music to date. The album leans on a less-is-more approach, with songs averaging around two minutes without skimping on quality. The superior sequencing — opening with her festival-ready rage bops like the chest thumping “Who Want It” and closing with her slower retrospective songs — adds scope and pace to the project.
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Rock-infused songs like “Son of a Gun,” “Smoke Break,” and “Can’t Win ‘Em All” show the influence of alt-rock touchstones such as No Doubt, Avril Lavigne, and Paramore, and will definitely be highlights of her explosive live shows. (In fact, she’s releasing Lethal on Fueled by Ramen, home of Fall Out Boy and Twenty-One Pilots.) Add the lyrical depth of a track like “Smile” or “Can’t Win ‘Em All,” where she somberly reflects on past friendships gone awry, and you’ve got the deepest music of her career so far.
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While Lethal pushes her genre-bending ambitions forward, Rico Nasty also remains intent on demonstrating why she’s one of the premier rappers of her generation. Her nimble mastery of varying flows and precise cadences allows her to slither seamlessly across productions from Rayman on the Beat and her creative partner Imad Royal, who has also worked with Doja Cat, the Chainsmokers, and Panic! at the Disco. Rico and Imad have a special Snoop-and-Dr. Dre-like chemistry that allows her to float across Lethal with a smooth consistency, regardless of the genre she’s working in.
The album has some weak points. “Say We Did” slathers excessive Auto-Tune over forgettable lyrics, and while Rico’s wordplay and songwriting on Lethal are solid, there’s a sense she still has a ways to go if she aims to truly stand out amongst her peers. But she’s clearly moving forward musically and personally.
