Rico Nasty

Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly (born May 7, 1997), known professionally as Rico Nasty, is an American rapper and singer from Maryland.

Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly was born on May 7, 1997 in Largo, Maryland, an only child to a Puerto Rican mother and African-American father, also a rapper, who introduced her to rap music when she was a child.

She was raised in various locations including Prince George's County, Maryland, New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. When she was 11, her mother moved to Palmer Park, Maryland where she was enrolled in a Baltimore boarding school for the sixth grade.

She was expelled for smoking marijuana at 14 and transferred to Charles Herbert Flowers High School in Prince George's County where her music career began.

The following year, her father was sent to prison and her parents divorced.

She began self-releasing content in 2014, while in high school, and had released five solo mixtapes by late 2017.

She gained a local, underground following with SoundCloud singles such as "iCarly" and "Hey Arnold".

Rico started rapping in high school and released her first mixtape, Summer's Eve (2014), when she was in tenth grade at Charles Herbert Flowers High School.

After graduating from high school, she started focusing on her music career and released two mixtapes in 2016: The Rico Story and Sugar Trap.

Rico Nasty gained some prominence with her 2016 single "iCarly" which amassed over 500,000 views on YouTube within months.

She also released the single "Hey Arnold", which was later remixed featuring Atlanta rapper Lil Yachty.

The duo would later link again in 2017 for the single "Mamacita" as part of The Fate of the Furious: The Album soundtrack.

In May 2017, Rico Nasty released her fourth mixtape, Tales of Tacobella, which is her earliest commercially available release.

Kyann-Sian Williams of NME described the mixtape as "otherworldly and synth-heavy" and noted that the mixtape proved Rico's singing abilities.

In June 2017, Rico released her single "Poppin" which quickly garnered over five million views on YouTube.

The single was also featured on the HBO television series Insecure.

Rico's fifth mixtape Sugar Trap 2 was released in October 2017 and featured an appearance from rapper Famous Dex.

Critics of Rolling Stone listed the mixtape as one of the Best Rap Albums of 2017.

Rico embarked on the Sugar Trap Tour in late 2017.

After gaining wider recognition with singles such as "Smack a Bitch" and "Poppin" in 2018, she signed to Atlantic Records where she released her sixth mixtape, Nasty (2018).

The singles "Smack a Bitch", "Poppin" and "Key Lime OG" gained prominence in early 2018; all of them meeting and exceeding 10 million YouTube views in that year.

The former two songs additionally gained some popularity on the video-sharing platform TikTok after being used in various memes.

"Smack a Bitch" was also ranked at No. 2 on The Fader 's list of "The 100 Best Songs of 2018".

The aforementioned influx of popularity helped Rico Nasty catch the attention of Atlantic Records, where she signed and released her sixth mixtape and major-label debut, Nasty, in June 2018.

The mixtape was generally well received and landed on critics lists of publications such as Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Noisey, Fact, and Spin, among several others. The mixtape's tracks, "Bitch I'm Nasty", "Countin' Up" and "Rage", were also ranked on lists of the best songs of 2018 by Paper, Highsnobiety and Pitchfork respectively.

In late July, Rico Nasty embarked on her headlining The Nasty Tour to support the mixtape, playing twenty-seven different venues across North America over six weeks and completing the tour in early September.

Rico Nasty appeared in the music video for the remix of "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus.

Rico Nasty made the cover of The Fader for their Summer 2018 issue, and was the subject of a documentary produced by the publication titled Countin' Up.

This was followed by the collaborative mixtape Anger Management (2019) with long time associate Kenny Beats.

She released her non-album singles as well as the respective music videos for "Guap (LaLaLa)" in December 2019, as well as "Roof" in January 2019.

She followed them up with several more non-album singles in early 2019 such as "Sandy", "Party Goin Dumb", "Big Dick Energy", "Hit That", and "Wanna Do".

In April 2019, Rico Nasty and producer Kenny Beats supported singer Khalid during the opening night of the Free Spirit World Tour.

In April 2019, Rico and producer Kenny Beats released the collaborative mixtape, Anger Management, as a surprise release.

The mixtape received critical acclaim and made the critics' lists of several publications including Complex, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Noisey, Billboard, NME, and Crack.

Anger Management is arguably Rico Nasty's most successful release to date, both commercially and critically.

In April 2019, Rico Nasty performed at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival for the first time in her career.

To support the record, Rico embarked on her "Live in Europe" tour starting in late May and ending in mid July.

In June 2019, XXL announced that Rico Nasty was part of their XXL Freshman Class of 2019.

Rico Nasty's debut studio album, Nightmare Vacation, was released in December 2020.

Rico's seventh mixtape, Las Ruinas, was released on July 22, 2022.