Photo by Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for ICM x Cantu
Rico Nasty’s “Countin' Up” is an infectious ode to stacking money, and the song’s producer Kenny Beats revealed in an interview with L.A.’s Power 106 that it was inspired by the rapper hitting it big on a slot machine.
“Countin Up” appears on Nasty, Rico’s debut studio LP. Kenny produced much of the project, and the pair had actually recently finished the track “Trust Issues,” which she and her team went to shoot the video for in Las Vegas.
“Her whole team left L.A., went to Vegas to film the video, filmed the whole video, went to a casino. Rico won like $30,000 on a slot machine—it might have been $50,000,” Kenny Beats says. “She literally put a quarter into a slot machine, won like $30,000, came back, and then that night we made ‘Countin’ Up'.”
Kenny also referenced a video on his Instagram of he and Rico in the studio with her showing off the casino winnings.
“She’s in here with like 20 grand just counting it, throwing it, rapping to this song. I think that’s what inspired ‘Steady countin’ up,‘” Kenny said.
On “Countin' Up,‘ Rico brags about her financial independence and taunts her rivals, rapping:
You can’t even handle a bitch like me
Make my own money, and I buy my own weed
Touch my wrist and your hand gon' freeze
Beggin' for the kitty on his hands and knees
In a 2018 cover story for The FADER, Rico talked about what it was like to receive her first major check after signing with Atlantic Records.
“You get the check and it’s like, ‘What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?’ I know there’s a million people who are like, ‘I know what I’d do with it,’ but I’m 20 years old,” she said. “I don’t have any debt, I don’t have any student loans. All I had is an apartment that I already had, a car I already had, and a kid.”
Rico Nasty appeared on Genius' series Verified to break down her song “Poppin.”
Read the full lyrics to “Countin' Up” and the rest of Rico Nasty’s discography on Genius now.
