If you caught my pasta snob article from earlier this week, you should know that there’s some irony in me writing it. Enthusiastic cork-sniffer though I may be, there was once a time when I ate McDonald’s almost every single day. No exaggeration.
We lived way out in the country in Fresno County, past where my school’s buses ran. So every day when I got out of school at 3 o’clock, from about middle school until I could drive, I’d go to the junior college where my mom worked to wait until she got off at five to take us home. There was a McDonald’s across the street from the college, and, probably to keep me from annoying the shit out of everyone in her office, she’d always give me a few bucks to go get myself something.
It likely stunted my growth and guaranteed future heart disease, but I loved McDonald’s. Hell, I was obsessed with it. It was the highlight of my days.
This week, to widespread acclaim, McDonald’s has brought back the McRib (for a limited time). The saucy riblet roll debuted in the early 80s and came back for a limited run in October 2019, but hasn’t been available nationwide since 2012. In any case, the internet loves the McRib, for whatever reason. And with the sandwich back on the menu, we thought, who better to review it than me, a McDonald’s enthusiast with decades of experience?
Since I don’t have a favorite McDonald’s franchise anymore, I just went to the location nearest my house. It was one of those fancy jobs with the double-lane drive-through. I didn’t see the McRib on the menu yet, but I ordered it anyway and they took it in stride, as if they expected me all along. The payment window was no-touch and by the time my credit card was done processing the person at the next window was already holding my food bag in an outstretched fist, waiting for me to come get it.
Clearly, these were professionals. It was like they thought I was some spy from corporate, sent there to secretly time them and report my findings back to headquarters. I was sent there to do a job, alright, but not that job… (*long drag from cigarette, dreamy anecdote about some dame*)
Fine, fine, enough foreplay. I had to resist the urge to eat my sandwich in the car (the place where I’d normally eat McDonald’s food, the place where I’d argue McDonald’s food is meant to be eaten) so that I could photograph it. But it was only a two-minute drive from home so it didn’t have much time to get cold or soggy(er).
Opening up the bag…
Vince Mancini
In contrast to the effortlessly efficient service, this thing looked like a damn crime scene. I’m surprised no one took the time to write “HELTER SKELTER” on the lid of the box. They expect a person to eat this inside a car? Yeah, right. I’m going to end up with half of that on my hands, face, and crotch. No way I eat this on the way to anywhere that doesn’t stock extra gym shorts they can loan me from the nurse’s office.
Just hefting it, I knew that the bottom bun was, as you might expect, soggy as hell.
First bite:
Okay, not bad. I was expecting that red sauce to be way too sweet but it actually isn’t so bad. The pork stuff (in classic boneless riblet shape!) reminds me of that pork loaf you sometimes get in Vietnamese restaurants — not sure what it’s called, but it looks kind of like a pork meatloaf with diced rather than ground pork?
Anyway, I love that stuff so it’s not a bad food memory to evoke. The cornmeal dusting on the bun is also a nice touch. Adds a subtle but needed flavor and texture contrast. There are big slices (for McDonald’s) of fresh onions, which add freshness and crunch. I’m very pro onion, so that’s nice.
Second bite:
Now I’m now noticing weird textures in the meat. Like microscopic bone fragments? The meat somehow comes on juicy but chews dry. Noticing the processed flavor more here, probably because of the texture putting that thought in my head.
Third bite:
Ooh, it has pickles. The pickles are great. This should have more pickles. You ever notice McDonald’s pickles are just the right size? You can bite right through them. Nothing worse than a thick-ass pickle that falls in your lap when you’re trying to bite through your burger, I always say.
The McDonald’s engineers solved that one years ago.
Fourth bite:
Okay, I’m halfway through and I’m tapping out. The sugary sauce and processed pork are yummy enough at first, and the pickles and onions help a lot, but it sort of loses its appeal. I mean… it’s fine. There’s a reason the similarly processed McNuggies only come in small crunchy bites (I confess that I still love McNuggies, even though I know deep down that they’re made of disgusting pink chicken slime). But this is like a whole big sandwich where the dominant ingredient is pork McNugget filling. Probably ill-advised.
Final thoughts:
There’s a reason McDonald’s only serves the McRib for a limited time. Scarcity seems to be the main appeal. It might not be the worst thing on the menu, but you probably don’t want your workers in the back slipping in puddles of bright red barbecue sauce all year, either. Who needs that headache? Better to release it only when public demand reaches a fever pitch. But hey, that’s just me playing “Fantasy McDonald’s Exec” here.
Oscar Issac has been extremely busy lately, but apparently he’s adding video game espionage to his to-do list. The Star Wars actor is slated to infiltrate your TV thanks to HBO Max snagging Dune, but according to reports he’s interested in helming a legendary video game franchise as well.
As reported by Deadline, Issac will take the role of Solid Snake in a Metal Gear Solid movie.
Sony’s long awaited Metal Gear Solid adaptation looks to have gained some major momentum as sources tell Deadline that Oscar Isaac is attached to play Solid Snake in the Jordan Vogt-Roberts film. The movie is currently in development at Sony Pictures with Vogt-Roberts on board to direct.
The film is based on the Metal Gear Solid video game created by Hideo Kojima and published by Konami. The script is written by Derek Connolly. Avi Arad is producing. Peter Kang is the executive overseeing for the studio.
The Kojima classic is one of gaming’s most famous series, with more than three decades of games and spinoffs. Landing Issac for the role is something of a triumph for Vogt-Roberts, who went through a not-so-secret courtship with Issac to play Snake over the years. As Variety noted, in 2019 he said on Twitter that “the ball’s in Oscar’s court” when it came to casting after Issac himself told IGN he’d like to play Snake and a fan put together a movie poster featuring Issac.
THIS-MUSING-IS-NOT-NEWS-PSA:
To everyone asking how I feel about Oscar Isaac saying he wants to be Solid Snake.
The full process required to cast an icon hasn’t even started, but..
Ask @Bosslogic where the idea for his brilliant mock up came from.
As Deadline noted, Issac will star in both Dune and The Card Counter in the coming months and is involved in Brian K. Vaughn’s Ex Machina comic adaptation. There are also some projects still in motion, though the MGS adaptation will reportedly take top priority for him as Hollywood attempts to resume production during a still-ongoing pandemic.
Even as the industry slowly gets back into production due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Isaac has been busy setting his future slate in recent months. He is set to star in HBO’s Scenes From A Marriage opposite Jessica Chastain, followed by playing the title role in Marvel’s Moon Knight for Disney+.
That’s a lot of Issac in the entertainment world of the future, but it seems his top priority in all this is learning how to sneak around unnoticed in empty cardboard boxes. It’s an important skill to have, especially after all the press he’ll have to do to promote these works.
As teams continue to ramp up for the start of the new season on December 22, players met with media members during Zoom calls on Friday and subjected themselves all all sorts of lines of inquiry about the upcoming campaign, the changes their teams made during the offseason, and so much more.
Joel Embiid was among them, and Sixers’ star had plenty to discuss as he looks to capitalize the major upgrades his organization made in hopes of getting the team over the hump and into championship contention. But first and foremost, Embiid appeared to want to set a few things straight about both his future in Philly, and his dynamics with certain other teammates.
Never one to be cagey about what he means, Embiid told reporters point-blank that he’s committed to winning a championship with the Sixers and wants to finish his career there, if possible.
And on the topic of teammate Ben Simmons, Embiid also stuck to his usual tract of insisting that he wants Simmons on his team and that any rumors to the contrary are manufactured wholesale.
Joel Embiid on Ben Simmons: “I want him on my team. … The national media is always trying to make stories because they don’t have anything to talk about.”
He also sounded off on bringing in Doc Rivers and Dwight Howard, the latter of whom he believe he can take some pointers from, as Howard was once one of the NBA’s premier centers.
Embiid sees the value of having Dwight Howard with him this year. “I’ve never had a Hall of Fame [big man] coach or player around me.” Believes even though their games are different he can pick his brain as a guy who has been there and done it before.
All in all, the Sixers will once again enter the new season with a load of expectations, and a similar level of scrutiny, as Doc tries to get this team to a level they’ve never reached previously.
Tony Soprano finally realizes he’s a mofo in this week’s Pod Yourself A Gun.
This week, Matt and Vince are joined by Matt Christman from Chapo Trap House to talk about The Sopranos season 3 episode 12, “Amour Fou.” Alternate title: “Suicide by Capo.”
Jackie Jr. makes a move in an attempt to show he’s got balls big enough to get the respect like Scarface, but he should have stayed in watching Basic Instinct with his bro. Listen to the podcast for a non-exhaustive list of all the movies that feature a Sharon Stone nude scene. There are a lot. As far as I know, she’s never done a seductive dance to a song by Little Steven and the Lost Boys (with lead singer Steve Van Zandt, aka Silvio Dante), but Annabella Sciorra does in this episode. She deserves some kind of award for convincingly pretending to love that song. Did Tony’s mom ever dance like that? Is that how Tony realized he’d been hooking up with his mom?
Subscribe to Pod Yourself A Gun on Apple Podcasts. Email us at [email protected]; leave us a voicemail at 415-275-0030. Support the Pod: become a patron at patreon.com/Frotcast and get more bonus content than you could ever want.
Don’t play around on Melii or 6lack. They’ll kick you to the curb quickly. That’s the message of their new song, “You Ain’t Worth It,” which finds the two melodic rappers exchanging verses explaining all the reasons they’re dismissing their potential paramours over a smooth, guitar-laden beat provided by Fort Lauderdale producer Z3N. The two rapper-singers display crackling chemistry as they deftly switch from rhythmic rhyming to cool crooning.
“You just wanna sex and party all these bitches up,” Melii accuses her reticent Romeo. “But baby, I done had enough.” Meanwhile, 6lack plays around with the meme joking around about his name. “How to make her climax, one thing 6 don’t lack,” he quips, although he also admits, “Out of everything on my list of things that’s worth it, I did not find you.”
Melii appears to be gearing up to release music once again after dropping two mixtapes in 2019, Phases and Motions. She also raised her profile last year with a pair of high-profile guest appearances. In March, she and Teyana Taylor added provocative verses to Chicago rapper Lil Durk’s bedtime anthem “Home Body,” while in September, she joined Becky G in throwing some Latin flair on Saweetie’s hit single “My Type.” Stay tuned because it looks like Melii is preparing to make big moves in the new year.
My favorite part of The Mandalorian every week (besides the Baby Yoda reaction shots) is when the credits roll and we learn who directed the episode. You never know who it’s going to be! The season two premiere was directed by showrunner Jon Favreau, which makes sense, but then we have Peyton Reed, Bryce Dallas Howard, Carl Weathers, Dave Filoni, and for today’s tragedy-filled episode, Robert Rodriguez. In a possible coincidence, Netflix has also released the trailer for the From Dusk Till Dawn and Sin City director’s new movie, We Can Be Heroes, which stars… Mando himself, Pedro Pascal. The rest of the cast to The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl sequel is rounded out by Priyanka Chopra, Boyd Holbrook, Yaya Gosselin, and Christian Slater.
Here’s the official plot synopsis.
When alien invaders kidnap Earth’s superheroes, their kids are whisked away to a government safe house. But whip-smart tween Missy Moreno (Yaya Gosselin) will stop at nothing to rescue her superhero dad, Marcus Moreno (Pedro Pascal). Missy teams up with the rest of the superkids to escape their mysterious government babysitter, Ms. Granada (Priyanka Chopra). If they’re going to save their parents, they’ll have to work together by using their individual powers — from elasticity to time control to predicting the future — and form an out-of-this-world team
Once again, Rudy Giuliani has proven to be a non-stop treasure trove of material for late night hosts, and Jimmy Kimmel clearly had a blast going to town on Giuliani’s latest debacle in Michigan. During another desperate hearing to somehow prove that Donald Trump won the election and is the victim of widespread voter fraud, Giuliani trotted out star witness Melissa Carone whose wild, sometimes slurring testimony became an instant viral hit. It was like watching an SNL skit come to life. On top of that, Rudy audibly farted not once, but twice during the hearing, and the whole thing was an embarrassment of riches for Kimmel.
In a video clip hilariously titled “Shart Week,” Kimmel couldn’t contain his disbelief at Carrone’s existence. “We were introduced to a new character in the Trumperverse, a woman named Melissa Carone, no relation to the virus. And I say character because I’ve watched this clip around 14 times now and I am still not convinced she’s a real person,” Kimmel quipped. After noting that Carone’s strategy seemed to confusingly involve attacking Republicans to prove that Democrats stole the election, Kimmel couldn’t help but notice her slightly off composure. “What are the odds she’s wearing a ‘Rose All Day’ tank top under that scarf? Watch your back, Judge Jeanine!”
Kimmel then moved on to Rudy passing gas, and the late night host really didn’t have to do much heavy lifting. The audible farts and Jenna Ellis’ facial expressions are all the punchline you need.
You can watch Kimmel make a meal out of the Michigan hearing at the 5:10 mark:
After an awesome run through the NBA postseason as he shifted to center for the Miami Heat and unlocked new possibilities for them on both ends, Bam Adebayo is setting his sights higher.
In a media week press conference on Friday, Adebayo was asked about a phenomenon that happens for great players in the league in which other players suddenly want to model their game after the star’s. Surely after the run he just finished in the Bubble, young bigs will be looking to Adebayo for ways to grow their game.
In response, Adebayo gave an interesting answer about the young All-Star’s influence on big man development going forward.
Bam Adebayo, on others seeking to model their games off his, “It just shows respect for my game. I feel like I’m trying to change basketball.”
Bam likes the nickname the Heat has given him: “No Ceiling.” He said he wants to be remembered as one of top 5 centers or PFs of all time and wants to “keep changing basketball,” noting it’s rare for a big man to be able to guard 1 through 5 and run an offense.
As one of the Heat’s offensive initiators as well as their do-it-all defensive anchor, Adebayo has a hugely important role in Miami on both sides of the ball. There simply aren’t many players who have as much responsibility as he does, and he’s managed to shoulder that load in such a way that Miami was able to make a run to the NBA Finals.
Should more Adebayos spring up, it would certainly represent a sea change in the NBA, but the better bet might be that as others try to copy him, what we really learn about Adebayo is how unique he really is. The big man has few matches in the league, even if some claim to see themselves in him.
By no means am I a wine snob. But I’ll readily admit it: I typically give a side-eye to celebrity wines. Blame it on my cynical heart, which generally assumes most celebrity products are scams meant to capitalize on and profit off of broke and adoring fans. Or maybe it’s the fact that there are so many producers who make incredible bottles that are constantly overlooked.
The wine world is literary global. There are so many wineries that exist which some of us may never get to experience, simply because of location or the size of their operations. And with tariffs and importing kerfuffles, production yields varying from year to year, shelf competition, wildfires, climate change, and pandemic-impacted marketing budgets… new winemakers are up against it. Expanding a new winery’s reach can be an extraordinary challenge.
Then comes some famous person with a collab from a winery with millions of dollars to spend on trendy labels while leveraging a loyal fan base who will purchase just about anything they stamp their names on and it’s like, do we really need this? Shouldn’t we be investing in actual good wine from wineries backed by people with a true passion for fermented grape juice?
All that said, every so often I stumble across a wine attached to a celebrity that manages to blow me away, even though I’m biased against it. Such was the case when I got my hands on a bottle of 2019 19 Crimes Snoop Dogg Cali Red Blend. Uncle Snoop’s collaboration with the Australian winery marks the label’s first foray into California grapes, and it seems that they’ve done West Coast wine right. The red blend is not only tasty but it’s a quality-made wine that’s an absolute steal at its price point (like most of the wines in the 19 Crimes portfolio). Not to mention, it’s widely accessible in retail shops across the country in addition to being available for online delivery.
Now here’s a wine collab that makes sense. On one hand, you have 19 Crimes, a wine company inspired by British outlaws who were sentenced to rough it out under the grueling Australian sun in the late 1700s. Yet they managed to not only survive the foreign territory but thrive in it. Then you have Snoop Dogg, an award-winning rapper/entrepreneur/TV host who has made the most of his own second chances, after battling convictions and felony charges. With this blend of Petite Sirah and Zinfandel—the creme de la creme of grapes in Lodi—it’s like Snoop and 19 Crimes have emerged together as the underdogs of California wine.
It’s a duo you’d be crazy to wager against.
Tasting Notes:
This rich, purple-hued wine is rolling in the deep with black and blueberries. The dark fruit aromas are strong on the nose while the palate is immersed with flavors of candied cherries and a hint of raisin. This wine literally glides down your throat — it’s that smooth! And yet… it has a slightly smokey, fuzzy quality in the extended finish that will likely lead you to pour glass after glass just to wet your tongue again.
This is a dense wine that is equal parts supple and dry, and wholly delicious. You’ll be finished with this bottle before you know it.
Bottom Line:
The Dogg Father has traded in the gin and juice just to bless us with a red wine experience. And at such a budget-friendly price!
Dramatics aside, this is a quality wine that captures Snoop’s sincere persona. He’s the celebrity who simply wants us all to enjoy the things he enjoys. Seriously, have you seen this man roll a blunt (before he hired a professional roller, that is)? This is a guy who truly takes time to savor the things he’s passionate about. Yes, I know it’s a brand collab and a famous person is getting richer off it, but I swear you can taste that same love and attention to detail in every sip of the Cali Red.
Rico Nasty refuses to touch her French onion soup. We’ve met up at The Smith in New York City and while her boyfriend Malik and publicist Ariana have tucked into their meals with gusto, Rico seems pretty disappointed with the quality of her soup. So, she begins asking about the contents of the table’s other occupants’ plates. “What’s that?” she repeats for each of our meals, her curiosity only extended as far as each dish’s title — she won’t taste anyone else’s food.
But I’m struck by how her fascination with each person’s plate seems to mirror the voracious approach she takes with her music — especially so on her major-label debut album, Nightmare Vacation, which has been in the works for so long, her fans have become as hungry for it as Rico herself seemed watching everybody else eat. She seems engrossed in so many different genres and styles but never enough to commit to any one of them — even the ones she’s seemingly chosen for herself. While she’s been dubbed a pop-punk princess, a screamo rapper, and a “sugar trap” crooner — that one she coined herself on her breakout mixtape of the same name — she shrugs off such attempts to categorize her sound and outright rejects the idea that she should belong to any of them.
Rico’s outfits are usually an indicator of this defiant mishmashing of styles, one that’s earned her a reputation as a burgeoning fashion icon. Today, though, it’s raining, so a coat covers her semi-mod-ish look. Her hair, which can normally be seen styled in a rainbow of elaborate wigs or foot-long spikes that jut from her scalp like an anime hero, is pulled into a pair of relatively demure pigtails. But her makeup reflects a little bit of her rebellious, surrealist style, which could easily be the leftovers of a previous photoshoot or just the way she felt that day. It’s unsettling enough that I can’t stop staring at the faux scars gracing her cheeks but a far cry from some of the head-turning, cartoonish looks she often displays on her social media.
Paul L. Carter
Rico’s mad scientific musical method has the benefit of both singular existence and universal appeal — there’s something for everyone on her albums, but there’s nothing else like them on the market. She’s intrigued by experimentation, following whichever whim takes her fancy and capable of shifting lanes just as the listener thinks they have her figured out. As she told me over the phone a month before our in-person meeting, “I feel like I don’t fit in those things because I feel like a lot of the reasons why people give me all these, I guess you can call them homes, [is] like trying to find a home for what I do.”
“Obviously, we don’t know what [my genre] is now because it’s only been three years of rapping,” she continues. “It’s because they’re just unfamiliar with it, but 10 years down the line, it’ll be a trail of what this is. It could be punk, it could be a bunch of things. But I say I don’t resonate with those things, because rather than putting me in those things, I would rather people just watch and see what happens. Because I change a lot, so you never know what it could be. Just appreciate it for what it is.”
Which brings us to Nightmare Vacation, Rico’s official debut album. Take all the ingredients of her previous projects — the dreamy, syrupy trap, the spiked collar thrash, the playful party raps — and twist the knob to eleven. For fans of more upbeat, cruising-altitude hip-hop, there are tracks like “Don’t Like Me” with Gucci Mane and Don Toliver, “Back & Forth” with Aminé (a reunion of their 2018 collaboration “Sugar Parents” from Aminé’s OnePointFive mixtape), “Loser” with Trippie Redd, and solo outings “No Debate” and “Own It.” When you just need to “Let It Out,” she goes full, balls-to-the-wall hardcore on “Girls Scouts,” “OHFR,” and the remix to her fan-favorite Nasty single “Smack A Bitch” with fellow rule breakers PPCocaine, Rubi Rose, and Sukihana. And she more than holds her own in the raunchy femme-rap department with “Pussy Poppin,” sampling the same DJ Jimi track that gave City Girls and Cardi B their own “Twerk” anthem.
Rico tells me that while this eclecticism is intentional, it’s also a simple function of who she is — she has to be herself at all times. She’s gone through a punk phase, yes, but she also got really into the anime Chobits at one point, adopting the show’s cutesy aesthetic as her own. Even the reference throws most interviewers, highlighting how deeply she delves into her interests — which are broad-ranging and varied. That means stuffing each of her adolescent phases into one constantly-evolving package that can confuse people who insist on seeing her just one way because she doesn’t have the capacity to hide any aspect of herself for other peoples’ benefit. “Everybody can put up whatever persona that they want, but everybody’s human,” she reasons. “I just feel like everybody gives a fuck. I’m tired of everybody acting like they don’t give a fuck. If they didn’t give a fuck, then everybody wouldn’t be saying that they don’t give a fuck.”
Paul L. Carter
Rico Nasty has always been like this, refusing to fit in any bubble or box, standing out, but willing to throw herself wholeheartedly into being herself. In fact, it goes back to long before she was Rico Nasty. Born Maria Kelly in Largo, Maryland, Rico credits her Puerto Rican mother for always encouraging her to listen to her own drummer, despite what her peers may naysay. “I went to boarding school and my mom is dropping me off on Sunday to go to school,” she reminisces. “I had on a neon orange skirt with rainbow-striped socks. And they were knee-high socks and all the other kids had all regular clothes. And my mom looked at me and she asked, ‘Are you going to be okay?’ I said, literally, ‘I don’t care.’ And she was just like, ‘You don’t care that they’re going to look at you and probably say that not a cute outfit?’ I was like, ‘They don’t have to wear it.’” If she sees those same boo-birds from back in the day now, she says, “They’re never going to say anything, they’re just going to look at you.”
Citing anime, the scene culture, skate culture, and more as the influences on her one-of-a-kind style, she recounts the origins of her fearlessness as she adopted looks inspired by her favorite characters from anime. “Everything was cute,” she gushes. “I just wanted everything to be cute. It was like an obsession with kawaii. It was weird as shit. I think it was good though because before I hit that, I was seen and I had a fringe bang. It was really bad.” She also remembers going through a phase of having to fend off gatekeepers and rock snobs who challenged her nu-metal cred after wearing a Korn tour T-shirt throughout middle school.
Being a scene teen made her fond of rebellious figures like Lil Uzi Vert, from whom she also learned to tune out the peanut gallery. “They just always saying something about somebody that’s different, but they still listen to them,” she observes. “It’s just like a new flavor. If I go to a restaurant and they tell me it’s a new dish I never ate before, I’m going to ask questions. ‘What is in this? What’s in this? Where did you make it? How did you make it?’ I’ve never had it before, so I’m going to ask questions.”
“That’s how the audience is,” she continues. “They always ask questions. I feel like they’re never going to be satisfied because there’s no such thing as a perfect human being. So, there’s always going to be something they don’t like about you. If it’s not your music, it’s the way you dress. If it’s the way you dress, they don’t like the way you talk. If they don’t like the way you talk, then they don’t like the way you think. If they don’t like the way you think, they don’t like the way that you type on Twitter or the pictures you post. It’s always going to be something. So, if this is the lane you want to choose to be in, then you really need to have thick skin.”
She’s cultivated thick skin herself, although she’s now passed off social media duties to Malik after the exposure to so much nonstop needling pierced even her armor. But back then, music provided an outlet for her frustrations with her peers’ perception of her, resulting in Rico producing her first mixtape in tenth grade. Rico formally made her entry into the hip-hop world in 2016 with the mixtapes The Rico Story and Sugar Trap, which spawned the viral hit “iCarly” — yes, named for the Nickelodeon sitcom starring Miranda Cosgrove. The attention garnered by the SEO-gaming hit led to her collaborating with Lil Yachty on a pair of songs at the height of his own ascension, “Hey Arnold” and “Mamacita.” The latter appeared on the soundtrack of the eighth Fast And Furious installment, Fate Of The Furious, and further extended Rico’s reach.
Then, in 2017, she had her second major breakthrough with the mixtape Tales Of Tacobella, which she calls her favorite project. “I like Tales Of Tacobella, but only because, like, it was my first time going out to Cali,” she admits. “I’m in California, Hollywood dreaming. And the first song is ‘Once Upon A Time.’ Sometimes, living in my house and just living my life, whenever I hit that song, if I’m drunk, I will cry. Because this is all I really ever wanted to do — get rich. I kind of manifested everything in that song. I remember just thinking, ‘What do you want out of this shit?’ And I was like, ‘Well, once upon a time there lived a bad bitch, and all she ever wanted to do was get rich.’ I had never felt so optimistic in my life. Let me just say that. I felt like I could be on top of the world.”
Sugar Trap 2 followed, and it was a learning experience for Rico and her collaborators on the way to a major-label deal with Atlantic Records. She calls it the last, but not the least of her favorite projects, only because it was her first encounter with the tension between commerce and creativity. Up until that point, she’d done what came naturally, whether screaming her throat raw on the tracks that earned her the “punk” branding from outlets or singing along with the cotton-candy, whimsical tracks that formed the foundation of her “sugar trap” signature. This time, though, she received the first real challenge to her self-confident approach.
“There are so many songs on there that I’m like, ‘Why didn’t I punch in?’” she remembers ruefully. “‘Why didn’t I just fucking go back in and fix ‘Same Thing?’ And that song is probably the worst song I’ve ever recorded in my fucking life because I recorded it on a different beat. And then the label liked it. I wasn’t signed, but they were like looking at my shit and just had a close eye on what I was doing. So, they were like, ‘We really like this song, this song is fire!’ So I tried to buy the beat, couldn’t buy the beat, and just wound up going back and re-cutting the song on that beat. And it sounded fucking terrible. I was just like, ‘No, the label liked it, I’m going to keep it on here.’”
Her popularity exploded in 2018 with the track “Smack A Bitch,” rumored to be a shot at Dallas rapper Asian Doll, with whom she’d previously collaborated but later fell out. “Smack A Bitch” may be the quintessential track to introduce a newcomer to Rico Nasty; it’s jagged and raw, but relatable, swaggering between aggrieved and arrogant as Rico gives thanks that her myriad blessings allow her to dismiss her foe. It’s less about the rage than the relief, distilling the pufferfish essence of Rico’s rap persona into a 2-minute-and-20-second scream therapy session set to a punishingly serrated electric guitar riff that blasts through any anxiety-inducing thoughts by removing all thought entirely.
That energy carried over onto Rico’s debut mixtape with Atlantic, which coalesced the various styles she’d cultivated on her previous records into a confident amalgam of old-school influences, assertive, futuristic instincts, and punk-inspired irreverence. She doubled down on those impulses with its follow up, the aptly-titled Anger Management, produced entirely by her ace collaborative partner, Kenny Beats. She credits her sibling-esque relationship with Kenny for pushing her to new creative heights describing their dynamic in contrast to her easygoing correspondence with 100 Gecs producer Dylan Brady. “Because Dylan and I are both so weird and shit, we don’t criticize each other,” she elaborates. “We just work out like that and try to fix it. But I can be in a booth with Kenny and he’s like, ‘Nah, bruh, you can do this better.’ So we could go back and forth, low key arguing. Both of them are totally different, but I probably wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t have such amazing people in the studio letting me do what I want to do and then also giving me constructive criticism.”
Paul L. Carter
Rico’s last nightmare was about Nicki Minaj.
However, it wasn’t in the way that Nicki Minaj can usually be a new rapper’s worst nightmare. The notoriously outspoken Mrs. Petty has been known to sic her Barbz on unsuspecting offenders, leading to hours of noxious comments on social media and fan-fueled beef with even her most magnanimous collaborators. But Rico’s nightmare is of a more conventional, subliminal variety. “I was at the BET Awards and Nicki Minaj was up there talking, and I got up to do something and Nicki Minaj was like, ‘Don’t you stand while I’m speaking.’ It was the way she said it that woke me up out of my sleep. I swear to God, that was the craziest dream because I remember I woke up like, ‘What? Was that Nicki Minaj? Who was it?’ She had a British accent. She was like the lady from the Hunger Games.”
I wonder whether it has to do with letting down her fellow women in rap, whom she’s been intentional about working with on her past projects. On Nightmare Vacation, she makes it a point to extend her platform to the benefit of a trio of relative newcomers, who join her on the remix of “Smack A Bitch”: TikTok star PPCocaine, Kentuckian model turned gruff-voiced rap femme fatale Rubi Rose and former reality TV fixture Sukihana. Rico’s reasoning is simple; she puts her money where her mouth is. “When women talk about my music, they talk about it giving them strength, right?” she confirms. “They talk about it making them feel like a bad bitch. So I feel like obviously not every woman can relate to me because like you said, I’m different. But women can relate to Rubi Rose, women can relate to Suki, women can relate to PPCocaine.”
Paul L. Carter
“Every woman is different, and because of there being times where most of us are only used for our face or like an accessory or something, I say, ‘Fuck that.’ And I don’t care how many followers you have. I don’t care about your longevity. I care about the emotion that you bring to a song. I care about how when people put your music on, it gives them that same shit that my music gives them. I like that shit because it’s not hard rock and roll. It’s a different spectrum. It’s a different perspective on women. All of the girls are different in their own way. A real G is not ever going to try to insert themselves and do some shit that they can’t do. They would rather just let somebody — if they do it better, they going to do it better. And that’s how I feel about these girls. Instead of me getting on a song and trying to talk all nasty and stuff, that’s them.”
Of course, a therapist would tell you that the key to “interpreting” dreams isn’t in finding out what they mean but processing how they make you feel. For Rico, the main feeling she left her REM sleep with was one of anxiety. “I hate getting yelled at,” she explains. When I point out the irony in contrasting that fact with her rap persona, she comes up with what might be the perfect distillation of why she approached her music the way she does. “If somebody was to yell at me, I would yell so loud, they probably would never want to yell at me again.”
Which seems like the perfect segue to comment on how odd it is that our first time finally meeting in person is in New York, across the country from my usual stomping grounds and from where she actually has scheduled her photoshoot at the Uproxx offices. New York is a city whose citizens are known for their confrontational nature, which Rico says she’s well-suited to. “PG County is a rude place,” she chuckles. “It’s very rude. People don’t give a fuck how you feel. They don’t care. They have a point, too. Why would we? Who cares about us.” I ask what she likes most about New York: “The people,” she replies. “My fans from New York are the best. Oh, god. Please don’t hate me guys. My fans from the DMV, I love them. My fans from New York, they’ll fight, though. They fight and they dress nice. If that don’t say Rico Nasty, then I don’t know what in the fuck else would.”
Rico Nasty is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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