{"id":1213174,"date":"2025-02-21T01:52:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T01:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/?p=1213174"},"modified":"2025-02-21T01:52:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T01:52:01","slug":"rico-nasty-announces-rap-rock-album-lethal-with-fueled-by-ramen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/rico-nasty-announces-rap-rock-album-lethal-with-fueled-by-ramen\/","title":{"rendered":"Rico Nasty Announces Rap-Rock Album \u2018Lethal\u2019 With Fueled by Ramen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tRico Nasty<\/a> 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\u2019s over, she readjusts to solitude. \u201cWhen I come down off of a high of hella people congratulating me or hella people loving me, it does get dark,\u201d Rico tells Rolling Stone <\/em>over Zoom. \u201cYou do feel unimportant and alone. I don\u2019t know why our brains do that to us, but you do get addicted to the highs of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut during her most recent tour, the 27-year-old experienced an unfamiliar sensation before she even reached the crowd. \u201cI 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,\u201d the rapper recalls. \u201cI looked at myself and I said, \u2018This is just not me anymore.\u2019\u201d If the reflection staring back at her \u2014 the one moments away from stepping onstage to perform songs that solidified her as an enigmatic player in both rap and <\/em>rock nearly a decade ago \u2014 isn\u2019t her, then who is? She set out to find the answer on her third studio album, Lethal,<\/em> out May 16. Its first single, \u201cTeethsucker (Yea3x),\u201d is two minutes of raging rock catharsis.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe record will be her first for Fueled by Ramen, where she joins their rock-star 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 \u2014 including an homage to Missy Elliott that was teased but ultimately vaulted \u2014 due to breakdowns in communication. (Atlantic Records, Rico\u2019s former label, did not respond to Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s request for comment.)<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\t\u201cIt feels good to not be sad anymore or worrying about, really, anything,\u201d 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. \u201cI remember my mom telling me, \u2018Music is not your purpose. You do music and it\u2019s great and it\u2019s awesome and it\u2019s a blessing, but that\u2019s not your purpose in life,\u2019\u201d says Rico, who was born Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly. \u201cAnd throughout this album, I really got back into just like, \u2018There\u2019s Rico Nasty \u2014 she makes kickass music, she\u2019s fire. And then there\u2019s Maria \u2014 she\u2019s a person too. She needs to be nurtured, she needs to get sleep, and she needs to have hobbies outside of being a rapper.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tComing onto Fueled by Ramen as a rap artist, was there any hesitancy around the amount of freedom you\u2019d be able to have there?
<\/strong>No, honestly. I feel like the situation I was in before taught me how to ask for what I want. There\u2019s certain times when you are the first and there\u2019s limitations, and then there\u2019s other times where you\u2019re the first and there\u2019s 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\u2019re pissed. I got rid of everybody. I was down and out, as they say, because this was a team that I\u2019d worked with since I signed. These were people that I\u2019ve literally put my whole career in their hands. I trusted them. I knew them personally outside of work, and that isn\u2019t enough sometimes. That isn\u2019t enough to knock doors down, that isn\u2019t enough to get the budget pushed, that isn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was the breaking point where you decided to start over with a new team?
<\/strong>I think it was just feeling crazy, like, \u201cI\u2019m not about to keep feeling crazy, this is ridiculous \u2014 I\u2019m not crazy, and I don\u2019t really care how it may sound to people.\u201d There were things that I wanted and things I was being told that I couldn\u2019t 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. \u201cHell, yeah, you could drop it!\u201d And now it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, wait, I forgot to tell you \u2014 you got to do this and this and this and this.\u201d \u201cY\u2019all not about to make me seem like I\u2019m crazy to my fans, because I worked so hard to build this fan base.\u201d So when you guys are saying, \u201cOh, we\u2019re gonna drop this day\u201d and we don\u2019t drop that day, that looks unprofessional. I don\u2019t like not being a person of my word. I didn\u2019t like snippeting songs, and then my fans keep asking, \u201cWhere\u2019s the song?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s just like the same runaround every artist goes through, and you get to this point where you say to yourself, \u201cBro, I am taking myself serious.\u201d I\u2019m no longer taking maybes. I\u2019m taking yeses or noes \u2014 and I\u2019m no longer saying maybe my damn self. I\u2019m only saying yes or no. I\u2019m not teetering on, \u201cWell, I kind of like this. I don\u2019t want to hurt their feelings.\u201d Feelings are completely out of it. I feel like that\u2019s liberating, because when you get in this and you\u2019re 19 and you meet these people, there is a sense of a soft spot that you get for them. I don\u2019t want to tell them I don\u2019t like that, or I hate that, because I know they\u2019re working hard, and I know they got 100 other artists. Fuck that. \u201cYou\u2019re on my shit. What the hell are you talking about?\u201d Just owning that and stepping in that, and realizing, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not about to be played with. I\u2019m gonna speak up for myself.\u201d I\u2019ve already been looked at as the big, angry, screaming bitch anyway. So why the fuck would I care?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI remember you teasing a song on TikTok that sampled Missy Elliott\u2019s \u201cGet Your Freak On.\u201d 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\u2019d hallucinated the whole thing.
<\/strong>Let\u2019s be transparent about it. I was told I\u2019m good to go by one person, and then another person was like, \u201cYou\u2019re not good to go.\u201d And then another person was like, \u201cThis is disrespectful.\u201d So I\u2019m like, \u201cWait a minute. Hold the fuck up. Ain\u2019t nobody gonna call me disrespectful for paying homage. I love Missy Elliott.\u201d So when it started getting into that, I\u2019m like, \u201cFuck it, take the whole shit down.\u201d I\u2019m not about to be called all this random shit just so that y\u2019all can say whatever y\u2019all want to say on the back end.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce I heard an inkling of her being like, \u201cWhy did she put this out? I thought we were waiting\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s just business shit. It\u2019s no hard feelings. Me and Missy have spoken about the song. It\u2019s really not that deep. It\u2019s 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\u2019m so sorry to my fans, to the people that were looking forward to it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat would the 19-year-old version of yourself, who made Sugar Trap,<\/em> think if you were to play Lethal<\/em> for her?
<\/strong>Well, first things first, I would be like, \u201cOh, my God, you are not using so much Auto-Tune. Where\u2019s the Auto-Tune? Bitch, you know how to sing? Hold the fuck up. Where did you learn how to sing?\u201d And I would also be like, \u201c\u2019Smoke Break\u2019\u201d \u2014 \u201cSmoke Break\u201d was a song I used to fantasize about making ever since I made \u201cRage<\/a>\u201d and said, \u201cNo, I really want to take it there. I really want to fucking just go there.\u201d 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\u2019d just overthink it, and I\u2019d be like, \u201cNah, they\u2019re gonna think I\u2019m weird, bro. They\u2019re not gonna fuck with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDoing a song like that, doing a song like \u201cCrash,\u201d doing a song like \u201cSon of a Gun,\u201d where my voice is being used the right way. Before, the aggression in my voice was implied throughout the entire song, whereas now I\u2019m learning the balance of a whisper here and maybe a different tone here, and then you bring the growl back. I\u2019m just learning myself. And honestly, I probably wouldn\u2019t believe that I made an album like this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI love the lyric on \u201cSmoke Break,\u201d where you say, \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone uses their brain very much anymore.\u201d Every day it feels like we\u2019re 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?
<\/strong>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, \u201cBro, I am a mother, I am fierce, I am sexy, I am badass. I am all of these things.\u201d And also watching everything that has to do with women \u2014 the way men have been talking to us and treating us and thinking they have so much control over us in general \u2014 it just was like, ugh.<\/em> I was just disgusted with the way of the world. But I\u2019m sure, I hope, I\u2019m not the only person that feels like that, because it\u2019s just the way it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEspecially as a mother, I\u2019d imagine it has to weigh on you to some extent seeing the world your son is inheriting suffer from such a lack of empathy.
<\/strong>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\u2019d be like, \u201cOh, my God. I can\u2019t believe that that\u2019s happening. This world is really bad.\u201d And I told him, \u201cYou know what, though? This world was fucked up when you came\u201d \u2014 I don\u2019t care if people are like, \u201cYou\u2019re cursing.\u201d He\u2019s nine. He\u2019s all right \u2014 \u201cand it\u2019s gonna be fucked up when you leave.\u201d We all carry this chip on our shoulder of \u201cI want to make a difference.\u201d 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\u2019s what I tell him all the time. Man, just worry about yourself and trusting God. That\u2019s really all that my parents would say to me, because what can we do? We are one person. Was this the world I imagined him growing up in? No. Did my mom have more rights than me? Yes. This shit is disgusting.<\/p>\n

\n\tA lot of the record feels connected to the same feeling the image of you doing acupuncture on the cover evokes \u2014 something that balances this intensity with this kind of serenity, especially on the second half.
<\/strong>When you think about acupuncture, yes, at first, it\u2019s scary. You\u2019re hyper aware of everything. \u201cHow deep is this needle 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?\u201d You\u2019re thinking about all these things, and then once you experience it, none of those things matter. You\u2019re relaxing and go to this place where you\u2019re just at peace, and not in a dazed and confused type of way, but you\u2019re relaxed. You\u2019re relaxed and you\u2019re scared. You literally have needles on you, so you don\u2019t want to move. So you\u2019re soothing yourself internally, having this battle of like, \u201cCalm down, relax.\u201d And then you can feel where the needle is also telling your body to do the same thing.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think that\u2019s why the album starts off crazy, like a tantrum. I\u2019m going crazy, and then I\u2019m like, \u201cWait. I have to take a breath. I have to soothe myself. What matters to me and, underneath this rage, what am I feeling? I\u2019m feeling betrayal. I\u2019m feeling proud of myself. I\u2019m questioning myself, like, \u2018Do 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 OK?’\u201d And then you get to a song like \u201cSmile.\u201d I feel like I got really close with my parents making this album. That song isn\u2019t only for me, but it\u2019s for them. It\u2019s 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\u2019t lose that childlike wonder of wanting more from life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen did <\/strong>Lethal <\/em><\/strong>start taking shape as an album?<\/strong>
<\/strong>When I met Imad, I was working like a regular rapper \u2014 and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. But most rappers, we love working. We\u2019ll make six songs in a day and then we only like two of them. That\u2019s how I came into this album, working like that. And then Imad was like, \u201cWe should just make a song a day.\u201d At first, I\u2019m not gonna lie, I was like, \u201cBro, this nigga hates me. He literally hates me. He don\u2019t want me to make no music. Everybody fucking hates me.\u201d I was very irritated. I would start off by being like, \u201cNo, I\u2019m still making two songs today. I don\u2019t give a fuck, I\u2019m still following my own rules.\u201d And then I had this realization.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI made \u201cButterfly Kisses, \u201cSay We Did,\u201d and \u201cOn the Low.\u201d 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, \u201cOh, I did a 23-hour session.\u201d 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\u2019t. 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re in the middle of your Saturn return, which is usually marked by confrontation with things you\u2019ve been avoiding facing for a while. Tell me about that moment you had when you were like, \u201cOK, something needs to change.\u201d
<\/strong>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\u2019t like it anymore and it\u2019s something that you\u2019re known for \u2014 \u201cOh, well! Do something else. I shouldn\u2019t have to stay dressing like this and doing certain things that I was doing just because that\u2019s what you guys know me for.\u201d That definitely was a part of my Saturn return, because I just remember being like, \u201cBut why? Why don\u2019t 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?\u201d Looking at certain choices I made, certain outfits, and just certain people I had in my life, I\u2019m like, \u201cWhy the hell was I doing that?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople joke about frontal-lobe development and all of these dramatic mid- to late-twenties changes, but it really does feel like a visceral shift.
<\/strong>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\u2019t have hobbies, you\u2019re gonna be miserable. You\u2019re gonna be caught in the loop of going out and going to the bars \u2014 and that\u2019s fun for some people. It\u2019s 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, \u201cHow the fuck did this lady go to the water park and come to a show and do a two-hour set?\u201d You want to know why? Because she\u2019s doing something that fulfills her. She\u2019s doing something that makes her excited to wake up.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd me, I was like, \u201cWhat the fuck do I like?\u201d I\u2019ve 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\u2019s the main thing I\u2019ve gotten from the Saturn return, not looking for approval externally. It\u2019s more like, \u201cDo I think I\u2019m cool?\u201d If I think I\u2019m cool, then I don\u2019t really care. As long as I know that was a cool decision, or 12-year-old me would be proud of me right now.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there a song on here that you\u2019re most proud of?
<\/strong>When I think of \u201cSmoke Break,\u201d I literally just imagine their heads, just like, \u201cWhat the hell? That little body making all this noise?\u201d 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\u2019re like, \u201cGirl, you\u2019re my space. I\u2019m going to be pretty, but when it\u2019s time for Rico Nasty, bitch, I\u2019m getting fucked up. I am trying to get rocked and rolled.\u201d I\u2019m 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHave you had any conversations about joining any of the<\/strong> Warped Tour 30th-anniversary shows<\/strong><\/a>?
<\/strong>No, I haven\u2019t had any conversations about that. But we\u2019ll start the conversation now. Being on certain rock festivals is a goal of mine. We\u2019ve definitely done Rolling Loud, and we\u2019ve 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\u2019s career. We love that shit.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat were you reading or watching while making this record that inspired you?
<\/strong>I hope this isn\u2019t head-ass, but I read The Alchemist. <\/em>When it got to the part about the guy who was picking up stones, looking for the emerald, there was one stone he hadn\u2019t turned. He was about to be like, \u201cFuck it. I\u2019m not doing this shit no more.\u201d And that\u2019s kind of how I felt. I\u2019m like, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do it anymore. I don\u2019t care. Everything\u2019s failing. How am I supposed to do this?\u201d And that last stone, he didn\u2019t walk away. He fucking threw it out of frustration \u2014 threw it harder than all the other ones \u2014 and boom, there\u2019s the fucking emerald, or whatever rock was inside of that damn stone.<\/p>\n

\n\tI really took that and I thought to myself, \u201cJust keep trying. Because something about music makes me happy, and if it makes you happy, just do it \u2014 despite the business side and all the other shit. You\u2019ll figure that shit out later. When the music is good, don\u2019t worry about that. Just make good music and talk about how you feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

I also watched Life of Pi.<\/em> I really liked that. And my homie, she just had a baby, and her baby likes this movie called Ponyo.<\/em> Never saw that movie, so I watched it, and at my big age, girl, why was I crying? Inside Out 2,<\/em> too. My son was like, \u201cOh, my God, I love this movie!\u201d I\u2019m like, Cameron, this movie is sad as hell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.rollingstone.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 O artigo anterior foi obtido e traduzido do site internacional da celebrity.land \u2019 Source Link <\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s over, she readjusts to solitude. \u201cWhen I come down off of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1213175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1213174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1213175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}