The FADER’s longstanding GEN F series profiles the emerging artists you need to know right now.
Nino Paid keeps his head low. He’s sitting at the end of a long white table at Ocean Prime, an upscale seafood joint on G St. in Washington D.C., leaned back in his chair like a lonely royal. Arms crossed stoically across his chest, he contemplates each of my questions before answering — though he won’t say much at all.
Like the music that’s made him one of rap’s most essential new artists, the 22-year-old carries himself with an air of humble self-possession, aware when all eyes are on him while refusing to play a role. He doesn’t fill the space with empty chatter and doesn’t need to; when he does speak, his words carry weight.
“My big thing is, I don’t like to be a follower or go somewhere just because I know everybody else is gonna be there,” he says, telling me he didn’t attend an album release party for Lil Baby because he didn’t know anyone there. His thoughts come out in shy but concise mumbles. “Some people be telling me, ‘You gotta make that push sometimes.’ But other people that’s already in the industry tell me it’s good to keep that mindset.”
One gets a sense of this deep-seated independence from his latest project, Love Me As I Am, an 18-track LP of somber lyricism spoken plainly against a gentler take on DMV crank, a rap subgenre localized to the D.C. area and defined by its aggressive drum beats. On “Pain & Possibilities 2,” he calls out those who’ve betrayed him (“You been through bullshit, I been through hell too”) and threatened his life (“Niggas tryna kill me, better empty the clip”), framed with a familiar feeling: “I’m tired of goin’ through pain.”
The songs are just as reflective as that from his first project, 2024’s Can’t Go Bacc, though the latter record was a bit more outward-facing. His music has been compared to that of other pain rap contemporaries like Rod Wave and NBA YoungBoy, but Paid never had a particular vision in mind for what it would become. He just wanted to sound like himself.
“My city, people mostly was rapping about, like, beef and stuff like that, but the beats was crazy,” Paid says. “So I was like, I could just take that beat and just rap about what I want to rap about.”
“My big thing is, I don’t like to be a follower or go somewhere just because I know everybody else is gonna be there.”
Nino Paid doesn’t know where he was born but he grew up in Prince George’s County, Maryland, once the wealthiest Black county in America though his background is darker than the idyllic suburbs that may come to mind — troubles that pervade most of his music. He and his three siblings entered the foster care system when he was around four years old. They stayed together, living in homes where they experienced abuse and violence, but were eventually given a reprieve from this cycle when Nino and his younger sister were adopted by a godly woman whom he now refers to as his mother. Her patience with Paid, who faced jail repeatedly for a string of burglaries in his teens, would eventually become key to his survival.
When they first moved in, though, Nino launched into Big Brother Mode, tempering his sister’s expectations to protect her from another potential disappointment that comes with the foster care system. “I had told my sister not to unpack her bag. We had two big ass black trash bags, and I was telling her basically, don’t get too comfortable where we are right here,” he says. “And my mama promised me, like, she will never give up on us.” Suddenly Paid sits up and leans in, his voice becoming the loudest and most passionate it's been during our conversation.
“My mom never cursed, never drank, never smoke,” he continues, “she a real saint.” Under her care, she provided strict rules for how they’d live — humbly, virtuously, with family at the top-of-mind — which would later inform his music when he began rapping at 8-years-old. “I always imagine my music being broadcast at the family table,” he says. “My family big on church. So you know, at family holidays, everybody would come around me, trying to pray over me and shit. But I was always set apart from the other little kids. I was always doing some extra shit. But I was far from stupid.”
The pain Paid puts into his music wasn’t premeditated, he says. He just raps about what’s on his mind: “It’s just like, I heard the beats and thought, ‘Oh, I could rap.’”
His music manages to be blunt, candid, and tender at the same time. His hit “Play This At My Funeral,” a melancholic ode to life and loss against soft acoustic beats, explores trauma from different angles: his birth parents, the loss of his step dad, and an endless cycle of trials and tribulations. “I know how it feel when you try your hardest all year / And you still got nothin’ to show,” he raps, but he also expresses gratitude for how far he’s come. “I never thought I’d be able to jump on stage / And people would know my song (Damn) / I spent twenty-two years in this world / And I’m hopin’ I still got twenty-two more on the clock.”
“I always imagine my music being broadcast at the family table.”
When Nino briefly leaves the room, I strike up a conversation with his manager, Prez K. of Hustle Firm Entertainment, who at one point tells me that he’s been comparing Paid to Tupac. “And [people will] laugh at me,” he says, before adding with conviction, “I’m like, okay, that’s who he is. It’s a Tupac, bro."
It’s undeniable that Paid’s music has an uncommon resonance with its fans. He receives “messages and paragraphs” daily of people sharing their own personal troubles: “People say, ‘I’m going through this, I’m going through that, and I relate to your music and stuff like that.” He tries to respond to the hardest messages, aware that a lot of artists wouldn’t bother, but the outreach can sometimes weigh on him. “I’m not really ready for that type of conversation,” he admits. “I don’t be knowing what to say sometimes back to them.”
He’ll get a chance to practice that face-to-face when he embarks on his first tour in April which will bring him to Chicago, Brooklyn, Atlanta, and Toronto. In the meantime, he just wants his fans to know, “I’m not sad all the time.”
