Washington, D.C., rapper Rico Nasty said her love for hip-hop dates back to her childhood years, when she rode around “in the radio truck” of late DJ Tony Redz.
But her desire to start her own rap career came about after hearing Eminem‘s hit 2000 song “Stan.”
“It was ‘Stan’ by Eminem that made me want to be a rapper,” she told People. “I loved how it invoked every emotion.”
She added, “You felt scared, you felt excited, on the edge … It was almost like a horror movie.”
Rico Nasty described the song’s music video as “so cinematic.”
“[You’re] on the edge of your seat, waiting to see if this person was going to make the right decision,” she said.
“It also gave me a perspective that I never really had before,” she added, describing some artists’ fans as die-hard. “Which was like, ‘Yeah, a lot of these people, they have fans, but some of these people have fans that are [die-hard].'”
Other artists Rico Nasty is inspired by include Tyler, the Creator and Nicki Minaj.
She recalled how much Pink Friday meant to her, and times when she and her cousin would mimic Nicki.
“We would both dress like Nicki Minaj. We would talk like Nicki Minaj,” she said. “Nicki Minaj had an app. It was called the Pink Friday dictionary. And on it, every day she would upload new words that she would use. We had notifications for all that.”
Speaking about the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and how she defines the genre, Rico Nasty said, “I just think hip-hop is becoming … a mixing pot of all the things that people have learned over the years.”
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