A few years ago, Rico Nasty, a rapper who resists any time of classification, came up as part of the wave that was then known as SoundCloud rap. Since then, Rico has become a cult star, and she’s been busy lately. Rico released her very good Nightmare Vacation album at the end of last year, and since then, she’s released singles like “Magic” and “Buss,” as well as a bunch of collaborations with different artists. These days, nobody refers to Rico Nasty as “SoundCloud rap” anymore. But now, she’s released five new songs without prior warning, and she’s done it on SoundCloud.
Yesterday, Rico posted a cryptic image on Instagram along withe caption “Secrets on SoundCloud.” At the same time, she also posted a five-track playlist of unreleased songs labelled “Ricos Archives.” It’s hard to say when Rico might’ve recorded these five tracks — “Switch Places,” “How Ya Feel,” “Cotton Candy,” “Grow Up,” and “Show Me Your Love.” Some of the songs have the lo-fi immediacy of Rico’s early music, and some of them lean into the hyperpop style of some of her recent material. All of them are worth hearing.
Rico Nasty has always made a point of switching up styles as often as possible, and the newly released tracks range from the screamy hard-splat fight-rap of “Switch Places” to the blurry, bubbly Auto-Tune emo-pop of “Show Me Your Love” — which, at least according to its producer tag, is produced by Lil Nas X collaborators Take A Daytrip. “Grow Up” has some very relatable lyrics about forgetting passwords and being bad at parking. Listen to all five of those tracks below.