Album Review: RX by Rico Nasty
The Maryland rapper gives all nine songs of her fourth album to producer Kenneth Blume and does nothing but talk her shit.
The art of talking shit is just like barbecuing on a grill. There are various regional schools and people who partake in them. One such school is the Maryland school, which thrives in quick wit and pettiness, the quickness with which the insult can fly from your mouth before your opponent is done breathing. In recent times, the school has had a most devoted student in the form of Rico Nasty, who, in one verse, can make fun of a man about his finances, his hairline and his mother, then charge him for the favor. On her fourth album, titled RX, she uses Kenneth Blume for production of all nine tracks and unleashes her wit upon everyone around.
On “Frenzy,” she gives her rival an invitation for a verse solely out of the goodness of her heart. She describes the woman’s whole career as a joke and brands her as “Sim, no Angela,” because she put a green dot on her head. The jokes in “Cupcake” are way weird. She assures anyone caught biting while she shows that those who tried to chop off her legs discovered that she was a centipede. She describes the copycats as her clients who wanted some swag and came to her for it. She makes sure to give her hometown a shoutout (“Pretty girl county, the best are from Maryland”) during the roast.
In between all of this, she harbors a resentment against the people who doubted her. This resentment becomes evident in the form of money on “CDG Foams” that the bills run through, a gate on the house, hair priced at fifteen with two zeros. All the hooks end with the same refrain, “Can’t forget where I came from.” This resentment in “Rituals” takes on a less noisy but just as threatening form with the doubters having been left in the past as she urges them not to pity her. “You made double, I made triple,” she boasts while silently counting her blessings.
Her closest to a confession is the hook in the head-nodding “Rotation”: “Almost cut off my hand ‘cause I kept giving/Had to cut off my man’s ‘cause he kept hissing.” She refuses to post her man if he went missing, and she advises a woman to be herself rather than code-switch while getting into her car and driving off.
Nobody else gets the worst on these songs except the men. For example, the one on “Runway” that drools on her photos gets a bib tied around him while another has his dirty dick evaluated and turned away at the lips. The hook in “Runway” is the least written song with just the words: “Bitch, I don’t know who you are.” She enjoys renaming her enemies for sport. In “Butthead,” the first man is upset because of his receding hairline while a woman who is being kept by another picks up the name Beavis. The latter, who is the closest in “Kiss N Make Up,” falls into her like quicksand, keeps her photos in a folder and learns exactly how he stands (“He fell in love, I was in lust/Because only the money I trust”).
The pettiest thing that she does in these songs is in “Blow Your Nose,” where she leaves her man in the middle of a heart pouring while saving him in her phone as Critter and finding one use for his money: “I blow my nose with your lil’ check.” She demands the same hook from him that she doesn’t even boast about. Somewhere, there is a man called Critter still typing in the chat that remains on delivered.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Rotation,” “Cupcake,” “Rituals”