Rico Nasty Hip-Hop/Rap From the moment she arrived, Rico Nasty stood out. Since her breakthrough as a teenager from PG County, Maryland with her own signature blend of aggressive bars and bubbly melodies, the artist born Maria Kelly has been an iconoclastic presence in the rap game. She’s been drawn from the jump to the juxtaposition of hard and soft, countering her sweet-and-sour Sugar Trap sound with the vocal cord shredding mosh-rap that she popularized. Back then, label executives called her weird for songs like 2018’s paradigm-shifting “Smack A Bitch,” which kicked open the doors to a dominant new era of “rapper as rockstar.” At a time when female rappers dressed like WWE wrestlers, Rico was serving Sex Pistols meets Rainbow Brite. Still, for the better part of her decade-plus career, industry bigwigs advised her to try something different while other rappers dabbled in Rico’s style and sound.