Las Ruinas

The multi-faceted Maryland rapper’s been pumping out mixtapes since she was in high school. Since then, it’s been a thrill to watch her self-proclaimed “sugar trap” evolve into a sound that’s hard to describe in a nutshell; sometimes she’s a nu-metal scream queen, sometimes a hyperpop raver, and other times she’s straight-up spitting. On Las Ruinas, she’s all of those things at once—plus a grunge wallflower (on “Easy”), an East Coast boom-bapper (on “Gotsta Get Paid,” whose production credits include 100 gecs), and a London junglist circa 1994 (“Intrusive”). There’s a bit of contention over whether it’s her second album or her umpteenth mixtape, but Las Ruinas might make even more sense considered as a DJ set of Rico’s new material—an uncontainable, indefinable, throw-it-at-the-wall mix of aggression and vulnerability like only Rico can do it, preferably played in a dank basement with a fog machine.