“I never really thought about my life after my 20s. Like ever,” Nino Paid tells The FADER. We’re deep in conversation about his latest album Somewhere Over The Rainbow, released on August 4.

On his latest, the DMV rapper continues to mine the triumphs and tragedies of his indelible life, and his pen has only sharpened over the year and a half since 2025’s Love Me As I Am. On that album, Nino spoke candidly about suicidal ideation and childhood trauma; despite his momentous success over the past year, including critical acclaim, red-hot singles, and an opening slot on Jessie Murph’s 2025 tour, Somewhere Over The Rainbow is equally preoccupied with death, depression, and the ineluctable downsides of success that wealth cannot solve.

Nino Paid stopped by The FADER HQ in June for a deep-dive into his come up as a rapper, discussing in detail his childhood shaped by the foster care and juvenile detention systems, his very first recording session, and the harrowing personal stories behind Somewhere Over The Rainbow. We also discussed the evolution of the DMV rap scene, his friendships with LAZER DIM 700 and the late HavinMotion, and getting over a “real bad” drug habit. Watch the interview in full below, and read the full transcript.

The FADER: Some of our readers will be familiar with your backstory, but could you tell them a bit about your childhood growing up in D.C.?

Nino Paid: Ain't really much to do but get in trouble, you feel me? Unless it's obvious you getting in trouble, you keep your head straight to the ground. The DMV, it was small, not shit to do, but it was a special place to grow up. I swear, every day when I walk up the house and I go to a different city and I see something I don't like, I'm so grateful that I was born in the DMV. Cause with us, if you have any insecurities? You come to the DMV, we're going to make sure you feel insecure.

I seen a thing somebody said on TikTok, but I felt it bro – going to school, if I had a scuff on my shoe, before the end of the day, a group of people are talking about the scuff on my shoe. That made you build hard skin, tough skin. And then we have a thing, we call everything champ, and champ mean corny. So when somebody trying to be themself, trying to be a dancer, trying to be a singer – “yo, he's corny.”

So it's a lot of things in the world I don't care about, like the other artists or what they got going on in their personal life or whatever the hell is going on halfway across the United States. I don't really be giving a damn about that unless it's about like, the Earth or world hunger or some shit like that, I’ll tap in. But other than that, I don't really be giving a damn about what a celebrity got going on, or who they get married, or who they just broke up with, you feel me?

One of my favorite songs by you is “Real Life,” which is explicitly about all that shit. That's really one of those things that’s so compelling about your discography is that as a writer, you're capable of not just going within and talking about yourself and what you're going through, but I think you're also very capable of having a bird's eye view and seeing situations that are happening to other people or talking about like stories that happened to these other characters in your music. Can you talk to us a little bit about developing your style and how your storytelling skills have evolved over the years?

I don't really have no style. If I do, it's pain [pain rap], or straight-to-the-point type of bars. How did my storytelling develop? Honestly, when I first started rapping and making songs, I used to make all love songs. I was a lover boy as a kid, elementary school and shit like that. I started off like that, making songs for my crushes. My folks had a guitar in they room and I would just act like I could play it and make a song – but I would only be tapping it. Record a song on a laptop or whatever the fuck I had to record it with and it just went from there.

Then as I got older, I started experiencing life and getting in trouble and I went to juvenile. They had sent me out of state to Philly, and where I went was kind of like… You ever been – well, you never been to the feds, but a federal penitentiary is like people from all over the world, whatever the case may be, and you can't really determine where you get shipped out to. So that's what the situation was in Philly. So it was people from Cali, Texas, Philly, the Bermuda Triangle, Germany, fucking Detroit. So every day, I'm hearing all these different rappers, different things that they listen to. And every morning I would make a song or write a song and they was loving it. They was like, “Hey bro, spit that one shit you wrote yesterday.” It went from that to learning from my peers who I was locked up with. Like doing cleanup duty and my homie just singing while he's sweeping – I'm like, damn, the fuck is that melody? And I tried to sing and it went from that to me singing. But it's always been about real life. As I made it through the world, I just picked up on things.

Talk to me a little bit about your mindset coming out of juvenile. When did that transition into you taking music more seriously?

When I got home, I knew I could rap, [but] all I knew was how to make songs and put it on a paper. At that point in time, I had never been to a studio or anything like that. So I had went to my first studio session – it's funny because I never even told this story, I’m just realizing. It was like late at night, because I remember it was dark, but when I left the studio it was morning time. And my parents were strict because I was always bad. I didn't have no reason for me to be going outside and doing things, especially at that time. Somebody else booked the studio, because I really didn't know anybody with a studio at that point in time. But I ran out the back door and it's the same way I got to walk to school. The studio was in somebody's house behind the school. Boom. I go there and I recorded this song that I had just written. And when I got done, the engineers, they was twice my age, they was like, “You gon be the next Q Da Fool.” At that point in time, Q Da Fool was the biggest artist from PG [Prince Georges County], from Largo, from where we from. And that right there gang? That shit fueled me. Like, for me to come home from jail and my first song, these n****s I don't know, who don't know me from can of paint? They could feel everything I just said and tell me I could be the next person that I actually look up to at that point in time? It meant a lot to me.

You rap a lot about a lot of stuff that's very personal, but it's not like you're sharing every single thought that comes to your mind. Where is that balance for you when you're making a more personal song?

I think about the people I'm talking about. A lot of my instances involve somebody else. I went through some struggles by myself: I've been homeless by myself, had nights sleeping by myself. I'll talk to you about that. The stories that I talk about me and other people, I think about how they would feel. Would they want me to tell them we wore the same drawers that day? And would he want me to say his name and be like, “yeah, me and Malik wore the same drawers that day?” Nah, maybe I’ll leave that part out, you feel me? But me and Malik both was homeless. So that’s where I draw the line with stuff like that.

Actually, I could say this now. It’s actually a bar on my song, “Play This At My Funeral” everybody used to laugh and joke at. “My little sister is 19, just had a baby, and nobody told me about it.” It was all jokes and shit. And I never really came to the internet on some ranting shit or nothing like that, [but] my little sister had a baby with a man who was twice her age. So that's why I wasn't told about it. And I was coming home from jail and it was like, my sister… I was going through jail and going through all these things as a kid, I never thought about up until that moment when I sat down and talked about what she was going through as I was gone, because I was her only big brother, you know what saying? And as a kid, she got, apparently she got touched a lot as a kid from older dudes and stuff like that, so now she has a thing for older guys. So that shit, seeing the internet joking about it pissed me off but it was like, you know, I couldn't… it comes with it.

Even without the context, I think that is a really sad line. It speaks to the distance that can come between us as people. This segues into my next question, which was about you recently meeting your biological mom and the decision to film that and have a portion of that be public. How you're thinking about presenting this part of your life that is so intimate and personal to the world?

I really just winged it. My cameraman was already with me at the studio. She sent me the address, shit was like 15 minutes away. I was like, should I do it? I felt like MTV Cribs coming in there with a camera and it's our first time meeting. But I wanted it to be recorded at the same time, because the fans know this my life and I'm a rapper. I also wanted to record it because this is really happening, you feel what I’m saying? It's really happening to me. But I did feel like they're probably looking at me like… they don't even know me. My little sister I had told him who I was just talking about, she had found my mother first and she’d known for like a month or two before she told me because she didn't know how I was gonna take it apparently. But she had told her my mom what I was up to. Like some of my little cousins was already listening to me all the time and when I sat in the living room with them and played my songs and like they already know the lyrics to my songs.

They basically already knew I was a rapper, so me coming in there with a camera and all that stuff, I'm just looking moreso like I made it. Like I'm just some movie star. Cause to them, to those kids, they really look up to me. Like it's not even about my mom or me and her relationship. It was at first, but then, – I have siblings too. We was all separated and I always wanted that bond, like brothers and sisters.

But, you know, going in there, and like, the first two times, alright, we talking it’s cool. But it’s my younger siblings who my mom takes care of, and it's a group of four other kids who are younger than my siblings that my mom takes care of because the lady that was their parent, she died. She passed away so my mom cares for four extra kids you feel me? Because of what we went through and people separating us. If she let these kids go, they're gonna get separated. It's no telling, and she didn't want them to go through that. So seeing that, it tugged a heart-string, you feel me? It was that and then, the first two times, we bonding, we getting to know each other, getting answers, asking questions. But it was like every time I stepped away, cause me and my mom was sitting in the living room for hours just talking. We both smoking, talking, laughing, joking, crying, whatever it is. And like, you know how when you was a kid, it's the grownups table and the kids table,? Or like everybody playing in this room, the grownups upstairs? We were the grownups. And I would walk up to get a soda and all the kids would be waiting for me to get in the hallway and tug on me and be like, “I watched your last video, I watched what you just posted on TikTok.” I started realizing, these kids really look up to you, bro. I'm asking them “what you want to do,” and they like, “I want to be a rapper. I want to be like you when I get older, I want to be like you.” That shit really means something to me.

Do you feel a lot of pressure or responsibility to be a type of role model for these kids who look up to you? That's like something that comes through a lot in your music, feeling responsible for other people in general.

I didn't ask to be nobody idol, but now I know those kids look up to me. I know they watch my story, I know they watch my TikTok… I don’t think about no fucking fans when I'm posting something. I'm thinking about the kids. I'm thinking about only them. Is this too crazy for them to see? That's all I think about. I do give a fuck about my fans and what they think, but I'm not trying to be their idol. I'm trying to be their idol.

Could you talk to our readers about the DMV rap scene when you were growing up and like coming up as a rapper in like your early teens?

The DMV rap scene…. I didn't know nothing about the DMV rap scene. I didn't listen to nobody but Q Da Fool. I didn't even know it was DMV rap. I thought he was the only DMV rapper. Of course we had Wale, Shy Glizzy [...] Other than that, I wasn't listening to no DMV rap.

You put out your first full length in 2024. Can you talk to us about the DMV rap scene in the 2020s, as you've been coming up?

Shit, it’s just killing and freecar and robbing n***as, I'm not gonna lie to you. We solid on that. Like if you’ve heard Slimegetem, we got a couple drill rappers that might be up in the world. But that’s all it is.

I did want to ask about your collaborations with HavinMotion, Rest In Peace.

HavinMotion was a good dude. And I didn't go to the internet or nothing like that when he died. But that shit pissed me off, because I had just got off tour and of course I had told him many times before – I'll be honest with you, this was when I had a real bad drug habit. And n****s don't know, other than after now, I only bought my pints of lean from Motion. When I was in the DMV, that's the only n**** I bought them from, every time. Three pints at a time, whatever the case may be. And if I would pull up on him and get whatever I'm getting, he'd be all slow and I’d be like, “bro, you gotta stop doing that, bro.” Like, you serving me right now, you know what I’m saying? I’m Nino Paid, I'm not gonna do nothing to you; I just want my stuff. But the way you moving kind of slow, you talking slow, you don't remember if I paid you or not… So I was telling him, you gotta stop that, bro. And I remember I had just came off tour and I had a couple other artists with me on the sprinter and shit. I was getting another pint of lean and he came up to the car and he was on the same shit. And my homies was like, “fuck’s up with him, man?” Cause they not from the DMV. I'm like, “that's just how he be, bro. Like he be high like that.” And I told him right then and there, like I had told him before, “you gotta stop doing that.” And I told them, like, “I be telling him, but he don't listen, bro.” And shit like that only end one way.

You talk about your homies having a similar conversation with you on “Mirror” from the new record. Can you talk to us a little bit about [working through your substance abuse], but also what it means to have a community of people around you that can tell you, “yo you're tripping.”

It wasn't even just my homies. It's my homies, my girl at the time, my baby mom. Anybody around me who knew I was doing it, like damn near even the label and my manager. It got to a point where, I was at my girl crib one night. I was already high, came in, we was arguing, and I had went in the bathroom and I had popped some more pills and I had overdosed in the bathroom. But I had locked the door, so it was even more dramatic [...]

I woke up and she was crying in front of me and I was confused. I was like, “what the hell happened, why are you crying?” cause I was off xanax, adderall, percs, lean, them exact four drugs. She just kept crying. She was on FaceTime with my homies and they was crying, and she was like, “Matt’s 10 minutes away, you wouldn't wake up.”

I was like, “why the fuck are my clothes wet?” I was in the corner of the bathroom, in between the toilet and the shower, like, “why the fuck am I sitting right here.” She was trying to wake me up for like an hour. She was smacking – it was cuts on the inside of my mouth cuz I had my grills. She was like, “I was smacking the fuck out of you, you was not waking up. I was throwing water on you.” My homies was telling her what to do. For an hour, I wouldn't wake up.

After that, it got to the point where motherfuckers was trying to hide drugs from me. It got bad. So I just had to look at that and understand, like, I got to do it. I never really thought about my life after my 20s. Like ever. And I got to start thinking about that. If I keep doing this shit, I'm not going to make it. So it was all those things tied in together.

What's the first song you recorded for the project?

“When You Miss Me Most.” I was at a point in time where I wasn't writing music for like four or five months. When I was on drugs real bad and I was in a relationship. I just was too comfortable. It was literally right after “Tree on the Hill” was going crazy. I had just came off the tour with Jessie Murph and I was just, I got money.

You were lit.

Yeah, but I was super depressed. I had lost my crib because police had kicked my crib in, I'm pretty sure the world's seen that. And I lost my homies. Everything was going like this shit. I was real. I was tip-top in my career – personally, mentally, I was at shit, at down bottom.

What is it like to spend so long chasing after the financial stability and cultural success that you've achieved and get to that point and be like, “wait – I'm not happy?”

At that point in time, it was like, “damn, am I ever gonna be happy? Is it me?” Like, this is what I dreamed of, and it's not doing it for me. I thought it was me. It was me. I mean, there's a bunch of things tied in together, but it starts from me.

Talk to us about “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” because that intro is incredible for the new record.

To be honest with you, the main bar I love is, “somewhere over the rainbow people are happy and nobody living in debt.” Like, we work so hard our whole fucking life to get rich, to get famous, just to die and not have nothing. Somewhere over the rainbow, people aren't even worried about that. That's where that whole song came from.

I wanted to ask you about collaborating with Lazer Dim 700 on the new album. You've obviously worked with a bunch in the past as well. What do you like about rapping with him so much?

He's just funny as hell. He throwed too, you know, like he's just crazy. Something wrong with him. [Or] not nothing wrong with him, he's just funny as hell. He’s himself, I fuck with him.

It’s interesting to me because I think for a lot of people your style maybe seems a little bit more serious and then a lot of the guys you work with whether it's 1900Rugrat, whether it's Vonoff1700, whether it's Lazer, they're a little more playful.

My style is serious, my music is serious, but I'm a person at the end of the day, I'm a person from the trenches at the end of the day. A n**** who spent half his life locked up. I don't get along with the dudes that's, “they got guns, they got switches, let's get the fuck away from them” – I'm more so with the other guys. I'm not trying to be a criminal, I just can't sit here and vibe and fake relate.

Do you feel like you're a sad or a happy person?

Both.

Thinking about Can’t Go Bacc to the new record, where do you feel you've grown the most as an artist and as a person?

Can't Go Bacc, it came from the fans. The whole saying, that wasn't even supposed to be a thing. That came from them. Now, it's Somewhere Over The Rainbow and I have the Ox [as a symbol]. It's strong, but it's a silent animal [...] It goes through what it goes through, and it's still strong and it stands up. I feel like I know what I want out of this, and I know where I want to get to.

What do you want out of this and what do you want to get?

Shit. Just to leave something for like, not only me and my family and my friends, but where I'm from. Like the DMV, we don't have shit. We don't have nobody that really carried the torch and took it all the way there and all types of directions. And that's what I want from this shit.