Rico Nasty got personal on UPROXX’s Sound Check, sharing how Eminem’s “Mockingbird” struck a deep emotional chord for her growing up.
When asked to choose between “Mockingbird” “and The Real Slim Shady”, Rico effortlessly rapped along to both songs but, despite what you think about her stage persona, she chose the one that was close to her heart:
It’s going to shock you. I’m gonna go with “Mockingbird”. Because if your parents were divorced twice… I’m laughing at the trauma. When this album came out, I remember feeling a lot of emotions, not understanding what they were, and missing my dad being in the house. I love that song. It used to make me cry. I used to put in my iPod Nano, and I listened to it and be like, “I miss my dad”.
The track, released on Eminem’s 2004 album “Encore”, remains one of his most emotionally raw songs, talking about family struggles and absent parents — something that clearly resonated with Rico.
Her story is another reminder of how deeply “Mockingbird” connects with listeners, even years later.
However, the song that inspired her to start rapping was another Em’s classic, as she revealed in her interview with People magazine in 2023:
It was “Stan” by Eminem that made me want to be a rapper. I loved how it invoked every emotion. You felt scared, you felt excited, on the edge… It was almost like a horror movie. On the edge of your seat, waiting to see if this person was going to make the right decision. You almost feel bad for this person. It was very cinematic, that movie, it felt… that video was so cinematic. And then it also gave me a perspective that I never really had before, which was like, “Yeah, a lot of these people, they have fans, but some of these people have fans that are…” They’re die hard, man. They wait for your responses. And that was… besides Tyler and Nicki Minaj, that was my first example of what a fan was, low key, just obsessive. He even looked like him. He even looked like him in the video. That was crazy.
