Rico Nasty has always loved to experiment. Whether in the metal delivery over trap sonics that made her famous, or her more recent exploration of alt-rock, rap and electronic, she’s as daring as it comes. But after nearly a decade of carnage and charisma, the Maryland shapeshifter is done playing by the rules of the industry and ready to raise some hell. Her third studio album ‘Lethal’ isn’t a rebirth, but the result of a well-calibrated “diet” that consisted of “trimming the fat, working out and bodybuilding, of finding strengths and utilising them”.
This diet for the Sugar Trap pioneer, though, was a necessary reclamation of her peace after hitting a low point creatively and emotionally in 2022, following the release of her experimental second album ‘Las Ruinas’. “When you’re focused on the business so fucking much, it can really take the joy away from music,” she tells NME. “So the last thing I wanted to do was deal with all that shit, and then go to the studio rapping about how cool I am.”
It was on a “friendship cruise” with friend and producer Boyz Noize where Rico rediscovered the joy in making music again. The duo did impromptu DJ sets in people’s rooms and, soon after, they finished up the three-piece EP ‘Hardcore Dreams’. That moment, as well as an old memory at Berlin’s famous Berghain club – where a security guard told her, “There’s only one rule: you have to smile and have positive energy” – made her embrace the PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect) ethos as her new mantra which pulses through ‘Lethal’.
As part of this new lease of life, Rico also shed what no longer served her – including most members of her team. “I dropped everybody but my DJ and my assistant,” Rico recalls, reflecting on the hard decisions she made to restructure her team. “It wasn’t like I was like, ‘OK. Everybody fired. Go home.’ These are people I’ve worked with for years. I respect them, but I was given the short end of the stick, so how much longer am I going to do that?”
That’s also why Rico decided to have no features on ‘Lethal’. Bar a voice note from Zack Fox, she fought hard to “stand alone” on the album because she wanted to show that she truly believes in her art. “With all the cocky shit that I’m talking about on this record, it doesn’t makes sense to have other people on it because it kind of just goes back on my word of ‘I think that I’m the best.’”
“The evolution has been insane, but it hasn’t been something that I planned in any way, if that makes sense”
Focusing inwards, Rico honed in on every part of her artistry – her iconic gruff, bolshy style, fluid musicality and more – and defiantly forged ‘Lethal’. “My only intention was to be unapologetic and to be unintentional, if that even makes sense,” Rico explains. She didn’t want to “think too much about anything and just say what the fuck is on [her] chest” and all the “stuff that [she’d] normally be afraid to say”.
Fighting for that freedom to speak out, Rico has found a new home with Fueled by Ramen, where she’s taken back control of her creativity. “The best part about being with them is that everyone keeps saying, ‘It’s rock, it’s rock, it’s rock,’ and the thing is they told me to be myself,” she shares. “They didn’t care if the album was finished. They didn’t care to put a bunch of A&Rs on my shit… They knew that I was a rapper and appreciated that.”
On ‘Lethal’, Rico lives out her genre-blending fantasy – plunging into the depths of hyperpop, rage rap and even screamo. That’s why brash lead single ‘Teethsucker (Yea3x)’ and the frenetic hyperpop tune ‘On The Low’ live on the record: to remind the world just how hard she kicks down the door to what’s possible. “I really tried to tap into things they might not know I could make, but that they would still fuck with,” Rico says. “They’ll be like, ‘This is Rico Nasty. This is my bitch’. Yeah. Here I am.”
From the self-indulgent anthem ‘Eat Me’ – which Rico describes as “definitely by design” – to the angsty rock-inspired jersey number ‘Can’t Win Them All’ that is as cathartic as it is uplifting, she is reinventing her Sugar Trap sound: her own signature subgenre all about unfiltered emotion, bratty confidence and a refusal to conform. “Sugar Trap has always been embracing the dark and light, embracing the good and the bad,” she explains. “With ‘Can’t Win Them All,’ that’s literally the message of the song: realising you’re not gonna do everything right.
“When you’re focused on the business so fucking much, it can really take the joy away from music”
“I made that little tune for the girls who are too fucking nice,” she continues. “They give people so many chances and I’m like, ‘You should smack that bitch.’ But in reality, I’m literally the same! I’m like, ‘Oh god, well, how do I confront this situation?’ I think every bad bitch is a little timid sometimes. No good superhero won the entire time.”
It hasn’t always been an easy journey for the artist who has long felt like she didn’t fit into either world – too alternative for rap and too rap for the alt scene. “Say it, because I feel it,” she says, when asked if she feels underrated. “I resonate with that a lot.” Her career has always been about pushing boundaries, but in a moment where female rap is really expanding in sound and style, Rico still feels like a category of one.
She even questions where she stands in rap, despite being a pioneer of the so-called “female rap wave”. If you were to put her music next to pop-rap darlings like Megan Thee Stallion, alt-rock superstars like WILLOW or alt-rap boundary-breakers like Baby Sosa and Bktherula, Rico firmly believes her output “doesn’t sound like theirs”. So, she accepted that she’s a blueprint they can’t replicate. “I don’t mind being niche. I stopped thinking about where I fit,” she confesses. “I just go with the flow.”
Riding the waves of non-conformity has also brought Rico to new horizons: the world of television. She will make her acting debut in Margo’s Got Money Troubles, a series co-produced by Apple TV+ and A24, which she’s currently shooting. “I’ve actually been auditioning for roles since back in 2020,” she says. At first, she barely knew how to record a self-tape properly, joking, “Can we imagine how bad they probably were?” But she studied, took acting lessons and changed how she approached it, and “it paid off.”
“If anybody would’ve told me last year that I was going to be on a show with Elle Fanning and Nick Offerman [produced by] fucking A24 [for] Apple TV, and albums coming out, music videos are great – I don’t even know what to say about everything,” Rico reflects. “The evolution has been insane, but it hasn’t been something that I planned in any way, if that makes sense. I never knew the next step I was going to take – I just jumped. And thank God for the universe continuing to catch me.”
Taking this leap of faith with ‘Lethal’ – and everything leading up to and coming from it – wasn’t so much about reinventing who Rico Nasty is, but refining it to a tee. “This bitch was in boot camp. She was training real hard,” she says proudly. The glittery rage of Sugar Trap, the neon frenzy of ‘Nightmare Vacation’, the cold minimalism of ‘Las Ruinas’ – they’re all still in there. But now, they’re spotters in the gym, watching as she lifts something even heavier: the burden of becoming fully, unapologetically herself.
Rico Nasty’s new album ‘Lethal’ is out now via Fueled by Ramen.