Nightmare Vacation - Rico Nasty: Review
is a Maryland based rapper who first rose to prominence in 2018 off of some hard-hitting trap singles fuzed with hard rock and metal music. In the years since she has expanded her profile, sound and range of collaborators specifically with a spot on the XXL Freshman list in 2019 and a collaborative mixtape with beat wiz Kenny Beats. With a number of mixtapes under her belt Rico released a number of singles in the lead up to Nightmare Vacation which is serving as her debut album.
Review By Lav:
I expected to have this review out sooner but gathering my thoughts on the record has been surprisingly difficult. I should start by saying that this record is incredibly samey, at least 10 of its 15 tracks run along a nearly identical formula of short trap bangers with explosive beats and a mix of shouted and rapped vocals. There is also a similarly homogenized but smaller collection of tracks on the record that take a more R&B style approach and are rarely successful. What made writing the review so difficult is that despite how similar these tracks are I have drastically differing feelings from song to song. Rather than every single little thing that works on some songs but doesn't on others I decided to just pick out some of my favorite and some of the most memorable moments on the record to highlight the things it does well when it's sounds are working.
There's a couple of tracks on the record that are content to just be short and to the point bangers and succeed with flying colors. Color kicks the entire record off with no hesitation and an absolutely hostile performance from Rico. It's an explosive kick in the face to get the record started in the same way that 10Fo is so close to being for the end. The track really should have been the closer to bookend the records with unrelenting jams that refuse to settle for anyone.
Dylan Brady of 100 gecs produced the single iPHONE which has grown on me quite a bit since I first heard it. The song employs some gecs style vocal pitching and a distorted explosive beat which felt strange alongside Rico but the combination grew on me quite a bit. Rico delivers a versatile performance bouncing between screaming her brains out and singing sensual melodies with ease and the result is an unexpected but welcome highlight. Let It Out features production from both 100 gecs members and is one of my favorite instrumentals on the entire album. The songwriting may not be perfect but the fury in Rico's performance more than makes up for it.
Back & Forth was probably the song I was most excited about going into the record and I wasn't crazy about it when I first heard it. Thankfully it's grown on me primarily because I think Amine and Rico combined have so much charm that it's almost impossible to resist, The hook is catchier than I first gave it credit for and both Rico and Amine deliver some absolutely hilarious bars. Loser is a slick trap song which features a pretty decent feature from Trippie Redd. While nothing about the song necessarily blows me away it is decent all around and features some solid performances. No Debate comes out of nowhere to be one of the catchiest and most memorable songs on the entire record. The flow on the verses is killer and I can't get the hook out of my head, it's a much needed highlight in the records second half.
Nightmare Vacation isn't quite the project that Rage was in 2018 or even Anger Management in 2019 but pinpointing exactly why has been difficult. Tracks with generic beatsor underwhelming repetitive songwriting litter the tracklist but they aren't all that different from some of my favorite songs here. Rico certainly has done enough to warrant being excited for whatever she will do next but this is a project I'll be wrestling with for a while, trying to understand why it didn't connect with me quite like her other work. 5.5/10
Album Cover Review By Tyler Judson:
This cover could've been good if it didn't look like it was made in MS Paint. It's campy and the imagery is nice but the overly saturated and badly composed assets aren't doing it for me. It does go with the aesthetics that Rico Nasty usually puts out but I think it could've been refined to make it a little more appealing. 4,5/10
For more rap check out my review of Megan Thee Stallion's Good News here
