Music

MARVIN x Nino Paid: The Maryland rapper is owning his truth and looking ahead to a bright future.

If there’s a reason that Nino Paid has an unrivaled status in rap’s emerging class, it’s because he’s as real as they come.

The Maryland-born artist dropped two albums in the last year alone, where he voiced the pain of his hometown while reaffirming the DMV underground rap movement’s place on the map. After kicking down the door with his reflective and desolate 2024 LP Can’t Go Bacc, Paid followed with this February’s Love Me As I Am, voicing his paranoias about the looming height of fame and fear of going backwards. Because of its relatability, Paid’s music has become a hit with Gen Zers, like wildly popular streamer Kai Cenat, but the rapper says he’s still striving to strengthen his bars.

“I feel as though once you touch the money from this shit, the hunger fades away and it don’t hit as hard, because I’m not in a trap or in a predicament where I need money,” Paid says. “I personally feel my music don’t be as raw as it used to be, but a fan might say otherwise.”

Read the full feature in MARVIN Issue 18. Click HERE to purchase.