Rico Nasty is used to the post-tour comedown. She spends weeks, if not months, at a time on the road performing for audiences who restlessly await the days until they can unleash their pent up rage in one of her mosh pits. And when it’s over, she readjusts to solitude. “When I come down off of a high of hella people congratulating me or hella people loving me, it does get dark,” Rico tells Rolling Stone over Zoom. “You do feel unimportant and alone. I don’t know why our brains do that to us, but you do get addicted to the highs of life.”
But during her most recent tour, the 27-year-old experienced an unfamiliar sensation before she even reached the crowd. “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,” the rapper recalls. “I looked at myself and I said, ‘This is just not me anymore.’” If the reflection staring back at her — the one moments away from stepping on stage to perform songs that solidified her as an enigmatic player in both rap and rock nearly a decade ago — isn’t her, then who is? She set out to find the answer on her third studio album, Lethal, out May 16. Its first single “Teethsucker (Yea3x)” is two minutes of raging rock catharsis.
The record will be her first for Fueled by Ramen, where she joins their rockstar roster alongside Fall Out Boy, Twenty One Pilots, and Meet Me @ the Altar. Rico joined the label while undergoing a reset within her team. She found a creative partner in producer Imad Royal (Doja Cat, the Chainsmokers, Panic! at the Disco), but she parted ways with the managers and A&R reps that have been with her from the beginning. It was the only way she could secure her creative freedom after, she says, she was blocked from releasing music she believed in — including an homage to Missy Elliott that was teased but ultimately vaulted — due to breakdowns in communication. (Atlantic Records, Rico’s former label, did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment).
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“It feels good to not be sad anymore or worrying about, really, anything,” Rico says. For the first time, she learned to leave her work at the studio when it was time to head home. The results show across the 15-track record, on which the rapper strikes a sharp balance between mayhem and maturity. “I remember my mom telling me, ‘Music is not your purpose. You do music and it’s great and it’s awesome and it’s a blessing, but that’s not your purpose in life,’” says Rico, who was born Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly. “And throughout this album, I really got back into just like, there’s Rico Nasty — she makes kick-ass music, she’s fire. And then there’s Maria — she’s a person too. She needs to be nurtured, she needs to get sleep, and she needs to have hobbies outside of being a rapper.”
Coming onto Fueled by Ramen as a rap artist, was there any hesitancy around the amount of freedom you’d be able to have there?
No, honestly. I feel like the situation I was in before taught me how to ask for what I want. There’s certain times when you are the first and there’s limitations, and then there’s other times where you’re the first and there’s no boundaries and people work like they have something to prove, because they do. When you are in a situation like the one that I was in, yeah, you get frustrated, you get mad, you’re pissed. I got rid of everybody. I was down and out, as they say, because this was a team that I’d worked with since I signed. These were people that I’ve literally put my whole career in their hands. I trusted them. I knew them personally outside of work and that isn’t enough sometimes. That isn’t enough to knock doors down, that isn’t enough to get the budget pushed, that isn’t enough to do the things that you want to do. I took all of that pent up aggression and all that fighting for myself, and I took it somewhere else where people listened to me.
What was the breaking point where you decided to start over with a new team?
I think it was just feeling crazy, like I’m not about to keep feeling crazy, this is ridiculous — I’m not crazy, and I don’t really care how it may sound to people. There were things that I wanted and things I was being told that I couldn’t get. If we want to just be really simple with it, my old A&Rs, they would not let me release music. They would not listen to the music that I was putting in the little link, or whatever. There was no direction. They would ass-kiss. “Hell, yeah, you could drop it!” And now it’s like, “Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you — you got to do this and this and this and this.” Y’all not about to make me seem like I’m crazy to my fans, because I worked so hard to build this fan base. So when you guys are saying, “Oh, we’re gonna drop this day” and we don’t drop that day, that looks unprofessional. I don’t like not being a person of my word. I didn’t like snippeting songs, and then my fans keep asking, “Where’s the song?”
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It’s just like the same run around every artist goes through and you get to this point where you say to yourself, bro, I am taking myself serious. I’m no longer taking maybes. I’m taking yeses or nos — and I’m no longer saying maybe my damn self. I’m only saying yes or no. I’m not teetering on, “Well, I kind of like this. I don’t want to hurt their feelings.” Feelings are completely out of it. I feel like that’s liberating, because when you get in this and you’re 19 and you meet these people, there is a sense of a soft spot that you get for them. I don’t want to tell them I don’t like that, or I hate that, because I know they’re working hard, and I know they got 100 other artists. Fuck that. You’re on my shit. What the hell are you talking about? Just owning that and stepping in that, and realizing, no, I’m not about to be played with. I’m gonna speak up for myself. I’ve already been looked at as the big, angry, screaming bitch anyway. So why the fuck would I care?
I remember you teasing a song on TikTok that sampled Missy Elliott’s “Get Your Freak On.” This had to be over two years ago, and after a while of waiting for it to come out, I started to convince myself I’d hallucinated the whole thing.
Let’s be transparent about it. I was told I’m good to go by one person and then another person was like, “You’re not good to go.” And then another person was like, “This is disrespectful.” So I’m like, wait a minute. Hold the fuck up. Ain’t nobody gonna call me disrespectful for paying homage. I love Missy Elliott. So when it started getting into that, I’m like, “Fuck it, take the whole shit down.” I’m not about to be called all this random shit just so that y’all can say whatever y’all want to say on the back end.
Once I heard an inkling of her being like, “Why did she put this out? I thought we were waiting” — it’s just business shit. It’s no hard feelings. Me and Missy have spoken about the song. It’s really not that deep. It’s really just people saying yes when another person is saying no, and just putting the artist in the forefront of that to get shit thrown at them. I take myself way too serious to be looked at as unprofessional or like a joke in any way. Me and Missy Elliott are from the same area. All of it was a dud, they ruined it. They put a horrible taste in my mouth. I’m so sorry to my fans, to the people that were looking forward to it.
What would the 19-year-old version of yourself who made Sugar Trap think if you were to play Lethal for her?
Well, first things first, I would be like, “Oh my God, you are not using so much autotune. Where’s the autotune? Bitch, you know how to sing? Hold the fuck up. Where did you learn how to sing?” And I would also be like, “Smoke Break” — “Smoke Break” was a song I used to fantasize about making ever since I made “Rage” and said, “No, I really want to take it there. I really want to fucking just go there.” But I would get in a session and I would get scared, I would get shy, and that would cause my voice to crack. I’d just overthink it, and I’d be like, “Nah, they’re gonna think I’m weird, bro. They’re not gonna fuck with me.”
Doing a song like that, doing a song like, “Crash,” doing a song like, “Son of a Gun,” where my voice is being used the right way. Before, the aggression in my voice was implied throughout the entire song, whereas now I’m learning the balance of a whisper here and maybe a different tone here, and then you bring the growl back. I’m just learning myself. And honestly, I probably wouldn’t believe that I made an album like this.
I love the lyric on “Smoke Break,” where you say, “I don’t think anyone uses their brain very much anymore.” Every day it feels like we’re living in a more and more extreme version of that. How much were you thinking about the general state of humanity while making this record?
I was thinking about the lethal state of everything. Everything is meant to kill us. Nothing is in moderation. Everything is given too much, too fucking much. Yes, I thought about it. I said, bro, I am a mother, I am fierce, I am sexy, I am badass. I am all of these things. And also watching everything that has to do with women — the way men have been talking to us and treating us and thinking they have so much control over us in general — it just was like, ugh. I was just disgusted with the way of the world. But I’m sure, I hope, I’m not the only person that feels like that, because it’s just the way it is.
Especially as a mother, I’d imagine it has to weigh on you to some extent seeing the world your son is inheriting suffer from such a lack of empathy.
I was talking to my son about this in the car, because I listen to the news when I take him to school and he be hearing crazy stuff. He’d be like, “Oh my god. I can’t believe that that’s happening. This world is really bad.” And I told him, “You know what though? This world was fucked up when you came” — I don’t care if people are like, you’re cursing. He’s nine. He’s all right. — “and it’s gonna be fucked up when you leave.” We all carry this chip on our shoulder of, “I want to make a difference.” Then make a difference in your community, within your friends, within your family. Stop depending on these people to be the difference. They have too many people in their ear telling them what to do. You be the change. And that’s what I tell him all the time. Man, just worry about yourself and trusting God. That’s really all that my parents would say to me, because what can we do? We are one person. Was this the word I imagined him growing up in? No. Did my mom have more rights than me? Yes. This shit is disgusting.
A lot of the record feels connected to the same feeling the image of you doing acupuncture on the cover evokes — something that balances this intensity with this kind of serenity, especially on the second half.
When you think about acupuncture, yes, at first, it’s scary. You’re hyper aware of everything. How deep is this needle to going to go? Is this going to hurt? Am I going to bleed? Am I going to swell? Is this going to leave a scar? You’re thinking about all these things, and then once you experience it, none of those things matter. You’re relaxing and go to this place where you’re just at peace, and not in a dazed and confused type of way, but you’re relaxed. You’re relaxed and you’re scared. You literally have needles on you, so you don’t want to move. So you’re soothing yourself internally, having this battle of like, calm down, relax. And then you can feel where the needle is also telling your body to do the same thing.
I think that’s why the album starts off crazy, like a tantrum. I’m going crazy, and then I’m like, wait. I have to take a breath. I have to soothe myself. What matters to me and, underneath this rage, what am I feeling? I’m feeling betrayal. I’m feeling proud of myself. I’m questioning myself, like, “Do I deserve to be proud of myself? Am I a good person, despite having to say no to people I love and having to set boundaries with people? Am I okay?” And then you get to a song, like “Smile.” I feel like I got really close with my parents making this album. That song isn’t only for me, but it’s for them. It’s for other people who are parents who understand the sense of grace that you have with your child you should have with yourself, because you are still that little kid, bro. You can’t lose that childlike wonder of wanting more from life.
When did Lethal start taking shape as an album?
When I met Imad, I was working like a regular rapper — and there’s nothing wrong with that. But most rappers, we love working. We’ll make six songs in a day and then we only like two of them. That’s how I came into this album, working like that. And then Imad was like, “We should just make a song a day.” At first, I’m not gonna lie, I was like, “Bro, this nigga hates me. He literally hates me. He don’t want me to make no music. Everybody fucking hates me.” I was very irritated. I would start off by being like, “No, I’m still making two songs today. I don’t give a fuck, I’m still following my own rules.” And then I had this realization.
I made “Butterfly Kisses, “Say We Did,” and “On the Low.” Those are all one-song sessions. I made the songs and I left the studio. And do you know how liberating that is? I spent a lot of my career locked away in the studio. I would do 12 hour sessions. You can find a lot of write ups of me bragging about the shit, like, ‘Oh, I did a 23 hour session.’ I feel like I lost myself making albums or making mixtapes. I would spend so much time in the studio that, when the music was done and it was time to turn into the business side, I just couldn’t. I focused way too much on the music. With this album, doing one song and then just leaving the studio, I was able to live my life.
You’re in the middle of your Saturn return, which is usually marked by confrontation with things you’ve been avoiding facing for a while. Tell me about that moment you had where you were like, okay, something needs to change.
You get to that fork in the road, like, you either are gonna become a shell of a person or just accept yourself for all your changes. You don’t like it anymore and it’s something that you’re known for — oh, well! Do something else. I shouldn’t have to stay dressing like this and doing certain things that I was doing just because that’s what you guys know me for. That definitely was a part of my Saturn return, because I just remember being like, but why? Why don’t I like this anymore? This is all that I fucking like. This is all that I know. How does someone just wake up one day and not like shit? What is that about? Looking at certain choices I made, certain outfits, and just certain people I had in my life. I’m like, why the hell was I doing that?
People joke about frontal lobe development and all of these dramatic mid- to late-twenties changes, but it really does feel like a visceral shift.
It feels so lonely, dude. I was on the Kehlani tour and the biggest thing that I learned from that tour is that happiness in adulthood is hobbies. If you don’t have hobbies, you’re gonna be miserable. You’re gonna be caught in the loop of going out and going to the bars — and that’s fun for some people. It’s good. But like I said, we are all just grown up kids. We need hobbies and things that fulfill us outside of our work. Kehlani, she has a lot of hobbies. At first I would be like, ‘How the fuck did this lady go to the water park and come to a show and do a two hour set?’ You want to know why? Because she’s doing something that fulfills her. She’s doing something that makes her excited to wake up.
And me, I was like, ‘What the fuck do I like?’ I’ve always been obsessed with architecture and Legos, so I picked up Gundams and I picked up these house modeling kits. I picked up hiking. I picked up things that make me excited to wake up outside of music and checking my comments to see if they fucking with it. Life is bigger than that. And I think that’s the main thing I’ve gotten from the Saturn return, not looking for approval externally. It’s more like, ‘Do I think I’m cool?’ If I think I’m cool, then I don’t really care. As long as I know that was a cool decision, or 12-year-old me would be proud of me right now.
Is there a song on here that you’re most proud of?
When I think of “Smoke Break,” I literally just imagine their heads, just like, ‘What the hell? That little body making all this noise?’ I also imagine the shows and just giving them that space to release and just go crazy and just bear it all and not give a fuck. I love that my fans even allow me that. That they’re like, ‘Girl, you’re my space. I’m going to be pretty, but when it’s time for Rico Nasty, bitch, I’m getting fucked up. I am trying to get rocked and rolled.” I’m just happy that I could give them that, but also say stuff I wanted to say, and also not compromise how I feel. That song is exactly how I feel about the world and the industry and everything.
Have you had any conversations about joining any of the Warped Tour 30th anniversary shows?
No, I haven’t had any conversations about that. But we’ll start the conversation now. Being on certain rock festivals is a goal of mine. We’ve definitely done Rolling Loud, and we’ve done the other types of festivals. I loved when I did Lolla and I loved when I did Outside Lands. I just feel like festivals in general are always insane. Getting certain festivals is always a huge accomplishment in any artist’s career. We love that shit.
What were you reading or watching while making this record that inspired you?
I hope this isn’t headass, but I read The Alchemist. When it got to the part about the guy who was picking up stones, looking for the emerald, there was one stone he hadn’t turned. He was about to be like, “Fuck it. I’m not doing this shit no more.” And that’s kind of how I felt. I’m like, I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t care. Everything’s failing. How am I supposed to do this? And that last stone, he didn’t walk away. He fucking threw it out of frustration — threw it harder than all the other ones — and boom, there’s the fucking emerald, or whatever rock was inside of that damn stone.
I really took that and I thought to myself, just keep trying. Because something about music makes me happy, and if it makes you happy, just do it — despite the business side and all the other shit. You’ll figure that shit out later. When the music is good, don’t worry about that. Just make good music and talk about how you feel.
I also watched Life of Pi. I really liked that. And my homie, she just had a baby and her baby likes this movie called Ponyo. Never saw that movie so I watched it, and at my big age, girl, why was I crying? Inside Out 2, too. My son was like, “Oh my God, I love this movie!” I’m like, Cameron, this movie is sad as hell.
