"Well-behaved women rarely make history" — so reads a plaque hanging from the ceiling at Toronto's Toybox, and the message could not be better suited for last night's headliner, Rico Nasty.
The 25-year old Maryland native kicked off her 2023 tour in Toronto, bringing her brand of confident, cool-girl rap to a sold out show. It drew an insanely diverse crowd, from punky kids to couples to solo women just looking to let their hair down. And Rico, born Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly, was proud to deliver.
Tracks like "OHFR," "Sandy" and "Poppin" got the crowd rapping and yelling along, while Rico danced and ran from one side of the stage to the other. Wearing a hoodie with a spray-paint style portrait of a man's abs and pecs topped by a fluffy hat with bear ears, Rico brought top notch energy while she sang her unabashedly self-loving anthems, and her supporting DJ and visuals (which included a twerking alien and a series of guitars swirling on screen) kept pace.
Her original tracks were mixed in with samples from Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" to Ludacris' "Move Bitch," courtesy of a DJ who doubled as hype man for the entire crowd. The audience erupted to new levels when Rico performed "Smack a Bitch," prompting the rapper to let the crowd do the work and sing along with the beat. However, the decibel level reached an all-time high when Rico broke out "Tia Tamera," the Doja Cat song on which she lends a verse. "My neck is on ice / You ain't cold as us / And when we hop out / Yeah / You know it's us," she sang, while the crowd cheered and rapped along.
The beauty of watching Rico Nasty perform live lies in her sheer talent, her ability to rap at lightning speed seemingly without taking a breath. She offered glimpses into it at various points throughout the show but, at times, it felt a bit like the DJ was competing with her presence — she would often stop rapping, let the background vocals do the work, and dance on the stage with no vocal contributions. Until the end, there was little audience interaction, though the crowd didn't seem to mind, instead happily feeding off the infectious energy of her performance.
When Rico did talk to the crowd, it offered a stark contrast to the bravado she presented when she rapped. "I love you, thank you, I was super nervous," she repeated, in a delicate voice that highlighted the "bubblegum" part of her "bubblegum and bullets" brand. Rico herself calls her aesthetic "sugar trap" — a confident, carefree bravado on the outside with a soft, inviting interior. Last night, Toronto caught a glimpse of that gentle inner Rico, and it only drove home the thrilling dichotomy of her persona — Rico Nasty is exactly what she wants to be, and she's hard pressed to care what anyone thinks of it.
The 25-year old Maryland native kicked off her 2023 tour in Toronto, bringing her brand of confident, cool-girl rap to a sold out show. It drew an insanely diverse crowd, from punky kids to couples to solo women just looking to let their hair down. And Rico, born Maria-Cecilia Simone Kelly, was proud to deliver.
Tracks like "OHFR," "Sandy" and "Poppin" got the crowd rapping and yelling along, while Rico danced and ran from one side of the stage to the other. Wearing a hoodie with a spray-paint style portrait of a man's abs and pecs topped by a fluffy hat with bear ears, Rico brought top notch energy while she sang her unabashedly self-loving anthems, and her supporting DJ and visuals (which included a twerking alien and a series of guitars swirling on screen) kept pace.
Her original tracks were mixed in with samples from Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" to Ludacris' "Move Bitch," courtesy of a DJ who doubled as hype man for the entire crowd. The audience erupted to new levels when Rico performed "Smack a Bitch," prompting the rapper to let the crowd do the work and sing along with the beat. However, the decibel level reached an all-time high when Rico broke out "Tia Tamera," the Doja Cat song on which she lends a verse. "My neck is on ice / You ain't cold as us / And when we hop out / Yeah / You know it's us," she sang, while the crowd cheered and rapped along.
The beauty of watching Rico Nasty perform live lies in her sheer talent, her ability to rap at lightning speed seemingly without taking a breath. She offered glimpses into it at various points throughout the show but, at times, it felt a bit like the DJ was competing with her presence — she would often stop rapping, let the background vocals do the work, and dance on the stage with no vocal contributions. Until the end, there was little audience interaction, though the crowd didn't seem to mind, instead happily feeding off the infectious energy of her performance.
When Rico did talk to the crowd, it offered a stark contrast to the bravado she presented when she rapped. "I love you, thank you, I was super nervous," she repeated, in a delicate voice that highlighted the "bubblegum" part of her "bubblegum and bullets" brand. Rico herself calls her aesthetic "sugar trap" — a confident, carefree bravado on the outside with a soft, inviting interior. Last night, Toronto caught a glimpse of that gentle inner Rico, and it only drove home the thrilling dichotomy of her persona — Rico Nasty is exactly what she wants to be, and she's hard pressed to care what anyone thinks of it.
