Rico Nasty Anger Management Review

The production is the frame, and it is deliberately narrow. Kenny Beats is credited as producer on every track, with Baauer on two of them and several uncredited co-producers rounding out the later songs, yet the tape sounds like one room. Drums are loud and dry, bass is distorted rather than rounded off, and synth lines arrive in short stabs that leave plenty of air for the voice. That space is the key choice. A lot of rap-rock crossovers drown the rapper in guitars; this one strips the sound down until the only thing left to follow is her.

The sample work gives the tape its two best surprises. One track flips a Jay-Z hit into something sneering and unrecognizable, and another leans on a smooth, hazy R&B sample that Rico slips into without losing her edge. Moving between those two textures is how the project avoids sounding like a single trick repeated nine times. Compare that to the mid-2010s trap tradition, where the beat often sets one mood and the rapper rides it; here the beats keep changing the rules and she keeps adjusting.

Her delivery is the real instrument. She can shift from a shouted ad-lib to a nasal sing-song in half a bar, she lands punch lines on the beat's weakest count so they hit harder, and when the melody takes over she does not sound like a rapper dutifully attempting a hook. The vocal control also explains why the harshest songs never turn to noise. Underneath the scream there is always a pocket, and she stays inside it.

The writing is where the tape thins out. Rico is good at the short, sharp line: a taunt, a dismissal, a flex that doubles as a threat. She is less convincing when a song asks for a second idea. Several verses repeat the same posture with different insults, and the album's own theme, the slow build toward anger, is carried more by the order of the songs than by anything she actually says about it. HipHopDX called the project half-baked, which is too harsh, but the complaint has a kernel of truth: some tracks feel like strong openings to songs that stop before they develop.

A second, smaller weakness is the mix of moods. When the tape slows down for its melodic songs, the energy dips for a moment before the new texture takes hold, and the transition is not always graceful. Still, the ambition is clear and mostly earned. This is a rapper using a short runtime to try on several versions of herself, and the production is disciplined enough to let each one land.

The sequence is the best argument the tape makes for itself. It opens with a run of short, hard songs that establish the temper at full volume, and the first four tracks pass with almost no breathing room. By the time the skit arrives at the midpoint, the listener has been shouted at, flattered and challenged, and the interruption works like a deep breath before the second half.

What follows is the part critics noticed most: the temperature drops. The songs after the skit stretch out their melodies, allow more singing, and let the production leave gaps where the first half had none. The effect is that the project reads as a cycle, rising, breaking and settling, which fits the anger-to-acceptance reading of NME, and it gives a tape this short a shape it would not have had if it simply held one level throughout.

The pacing is mostly right, but not flawless. The first half peaks so hard that the middle can feel like a step down, even when the songs there are good, and one or two tracks in the back half ride a single idea slightly longer than they have earned. The skit itself is brief and fine, though it does little that the music was not already doing. A few of the late songs also feel under-finished next to the density of the opening, which supports the sense that more time could have helped.

Length is the other question. Eighteen minutes is a deliberate choice and a smart one, since a longer version of this temper would have started to repeat itself, and nothing here wears out its welcome. At the same time, the best moments, especially on the closing stretch, point toward a fuller record that this one does not quite become. "Cold" opens with the right level of menace, and "Again" closes by trading force for something closer to resolve; between them the tape travels a real distance in a short space. That is the right amount of ambition for the runtime, even if it leaves the listener wanting another act.

Anger Management ranks just below Nightmare Vacation in this catalog, and the gap is mostly about scale. Both put on display a rapper whose vocal control is far beyond what the loud, messy reputation suggests, but the later release is a fuller album with more room for variety, while this one is a sharper, shorter statement that shows the blueprint. The scores agree: the delivery and originality marks are high, the writing is the ceiling, and the length keeps replay value from climbing further.

It is a record for listeners who want rap with punk velocity and are willing to follow a rapper who treats her voice as a weapon and a melody instrument in equal measure. Fans of the crossover tradition from Run-DMC to the Beastie Boys will hear a modern branch of that lineage. Anyone who needs dense, writerly verses or a lyrical argument will find less here, and should probably skip it for something more pen-driven. Listeners who bounce off screaming vocals in the opening songs may also tire quickly, though the later half is gentler.

It has aged well in the sense that matters: the sound still feels like a specific moment and a specific partnership, not a trend. The punk-rap and metal elements read as part of how Rico builds songs rather than as a gimmick, which is why the tape holds up while many genre mashups of the same period do not. The Rolling Stone line about a long-term partnership between rapper and producer looks sensible, though the real test is how much further the pairing can stretch.

Start with "Cheat Code" for the pure adrenaline, "Relative" for the proof that she can sing without sacrificing bite, and "Again" for the closing change of temperature. After that, move to Nightmare Vacation, which builds a bigger room around the same voice. The best thing this tape does is prove that her fury was never the whole act, and the worst thing it does is stop just as that becomes the most interesting thing about her.