Rico Love: A woman supports. When I say support, that don’t necessarily mean being totally submissive. A woman is strength. A woman is encouragement. A woman is enlightenment. A woman is somebody I feel like understands that she wants a man but she doesn’t need a man. For instance, when these girls require more for a man than they do for themselves, I can’t honor that. If you say, ‘Well he gotta have this type of money, have this type of car’ meanwhile you don’t have any of those things, I can’t honor that. You’re requiring more for him to do than you’re requiring for yourself.

That’s true. Both men and women can get lost in the idea of what you think a man should be.

Rico Love: When I heard “You Want to Know Why They Call You Bitch” by Tupac I got it. Women got it, because it was Tupac saying it. I came from that generation of listening to that and really understood. And when Pac said, ‘Dropping kids to your mama house so you can hit the club,’ that’s real. Like that’s right, and then you wonder why somebody says ‘bitch.’

So with some of the things you just mentioned, do you not think a woman is not supposed to put a picture on Instagram? She’s not supposed to hit the club?

Rico Love: No, it’s a balance right. If every picture is of you bending over with your ass out then later you say, these dudes is thirsty’ – no. Bitch, you’re a thirst trap. Like you present it for them. That’s fine if you got a beautiful body, but you got to respect the result that comes from that [type of social behavior].

When I first got on Instagram, I used to post all about my cars, my sneakers, when I’m shopping, then I stopped ’cause I looked around and started realizing everybody is doing that and most of these guys are faking. They don’t got it like I got it. I started posting my work and my accolades and posting my son, who I’m the most proud of in the world. And at first the likes slowed down, then they started seeing it as genuine and started respecting me for something more than just vanity and nice things. We’ve become so obsessed with things more than we are with the substance of ourselves. To the point where every rapper is making the same song. It’s the same tempo with the same song about the same thing every time.

That brings me back around to the actual music. I know you’re working on your debut album. How are you going to come in and change the landscape?

Rico Love: I’m going to talk about the things that are interesting to me; that’s all it’s about. I’m not trying to do something different. These are my real thoughts, and the fact that I think differently from most people means automatically the music is going to be a lot different. You don’t hear a record like “They Don’t Know,” even though they don’t know it’s not about a side-piece.

It’s not?

I wrote it about a metaphor for me writing a bunch of songs and a lot of people don’t know. But I know that if I made a song saying, ‘Hey guys, they don’t know I wrote a bunch of songs,’ nobody gives a shit. On my album, I have to challenge the listener to think different things. Any time you’re trying to be different, you’re already failing.

So specifically from the single “Bitches Be Like” and your debut album, what do you want people to get?/strong>

Rico Love: I want people to just start learning who I am. It’s not going to be an overnight process knowing who I am. I believe unless we give pieces of us, we’re not going to be able to sell albums. Drake sells albums because he makes great songs and we can see how he thinks. But if you make a song that I can club to every night and you got the biggest album in the street, why aren’t you selling albums?Because we don’t know who you are and we don’t give a shit. I believe I have the potential to really sell a lot of albums and really touch the world and impact culture because I’m passionate about it. I want to say something and I want to say things from my heart, say things that are real to me.

When is the debut album coming?

Rico Love: I don’t want to put a date on it. I would love for an October release, but I don’t want to drop a record until everybody wants a record. I want to become the guy they’re rooting for before I drop an album.