It helps that his writing is sharper now, able to drop in these casually worded revelations that just fuck you up. \u201cI would go try to invest in an island, with my luck I\u2019ll see a tsunami or something,\u201d he talk-raps over the smooth DMV bounce of \u201cOne.\u201d On \u201c2am,\u201d he follows up \u201cThey made me feel way less about myself like I was nothing\u201d with a \u201cNigga, fuck you\u201d that hits like a deep exhale. I have to take off my headphones and do a lap whenever he confesses \u201cOpioids destroyed the best of me, but I still hope they work\u201d on \u201cWhen You Miss Me Most,\u201d which, in a bit of tonal whiplash, has a hard-ass sickboi and prodbydaee instrumental that pulls off the drill trick of laying every drum possible over an unexpected indie rock sample. It\u2019s uncomfortable listening to rap that talks about drug addiction so straight-up, given all the deaths the genre has been hit with from the disease in the last decade, but there\u2019s a serious honesty he brings to the topic that feels like more than just rapping about emo stuff to fill stadiums.<\/p>\n
Nineteen songs of Nino Paid clawing his way toward the light is overwhelming, but all of the musical exploring he does lightens the mood a little. Not all of it works. I\u2019m good on the Buddah Bless-produced fare for the Lyrical Lemonade universe (\u201cValedictorian\u201d) and the lazy Jaydes<\/a>-style guitar ballad (\u201cLong As I Got Love For You\u201d). It\u2019s a lot better when he\u2019s positioning himself in the lineage of DMV music. Like \u201cPeace of Mind,\u201d where he tests out a pivot to Wale<\/a>-assisted brunch rap. Or \u201cDrop,\u201d a trip back in time with Shy Glizzy<\/a>, who is flexing his kid\u2019s school tuition with an AutoTune preset that hasn\u2019t been used since 2016.<\/p>\n Then, unexpectedly, Nino taps D.C. production archivist Tone P to hook him up with go-go fusions with live instrumentation. For years, go-go\u2014a collision of funk, R&B, and hip-hop that is the region\u2019s percussion-centric pastime\u2014has been the subtle backbone of throbbing DMV free car drum patterns. Nino fully leans into the sound on two tracks: \u201cStep With Me,\u201d which interpolates a classic<\/a> by UCB, and \u201cShine,\u201d a legitimately great Nino Paid song that seamlessly mashes up his fragmented vignettes of hard-earned perseverance with bass slides and a killer electric guitar riff. \u201cShe took me in and that really mean something\/My mother would watch as I play on my bike,\u201d he raps, his vocals cracking like it\u2019s a recording ripped from a club show. It\u2019s a moment that feels euphoric for more than just the Nino Paid close readers but anyone who has been emotionally invested in the rise of DMV rap<\/a> over the last decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It helps that his writing is sharper now, able to drop in these casually worded revelations that just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[342,49,48,75,343],"class_list":["post-855168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-albums","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}