Written By: Oliver Heffron

Flint’s Prophet Rio Da Yung OG returns with The F Tape EP, reintroducing the Michigan rapper’s relentless flow, hilarious punchlines, and unique perspective to a rap game heavily influenced by his gritty storytelling and chorus-allergic song structures.

The F Tape marks Rio’s first project since being incarcerated in 2021, and from the first flurry of bars off lead single “Talkin Crazy” it’s clear that the Flint native is locked in once again, prepared to finish his career’s ascent once he’s finally released later this year: “N****s petty, buyin’ ones, pouring milliliters / I got a zip of dog stronger than some skillet cleaner.”

First learning to rap with his old friend and longtime collaborator RMC Mike on a karaoke machine, Rio Da Yung OG started taking music seriously when Detroit rapper Peezy saw something special in the Flint native and signed him to his label Boyz Entertainment. From that day forth, Rio got to work and soon separated himself with his casual delivery of lyrics that should be dissected by English professors. 

While urban economic abandonment and dope-dealing capitalist dreams are a central tenet to a great deal of hip-hop’s content, Rio Da Yung OG stands out with lyrics that humanize the stereotype of the fiend by depicting addiction as a universal issue, even titling his 2021 project Fiend Lives Matter. He also utilizes his stand-up-level comedic timing and knack for visceral imagery to contemplate how the ones who look down and judge the addict on the street are likely dealing with addictions themselves. 

For example, when another rapper might glorify the quality of their lean, Rio reverses the image to joke about desiring his cup despite its poor state: “This pint of red done turned brown on me, I’m still gon’ drink it.”

After breaking out in 2019 with his tone-setting hit “Legendary,” Rio Da Yung OG built a reputation for his storytelling gifts without repeating himself, bringing respect and attention to his hometown’s underappreciated rap culture by stepping to each beat with infectious energy, limitless punchlines, biting deadpan humor and absolutely no interest in hooks. When he seemed ready to take his sound to the next level, Rio was incarcerated, and the buzz around Flint soon died down.

But Rio doesn’t make excuses, and legal obstacles are nothing new. During his breakout run from 2018-2021, Rio Da Yung OG rose to national prominence despite being on house arrest. Only able to leave for recording sessions at a studio in Detroit. Rio’s solution was to bring the rap game to his front door.

Soon, the house in Flint quickly became a magnet for –working with longtime friends like RMC Mike and Peezy while also branching to fellow ascending Michigan artists like Babyface Ray, Louie Ray, YN Jay, KrispyLife Kidd, and PM Capo. Before long, the humble Flint street was flooded with luxury vehicles and nationwide talent, attracting the likes of Atlanta’s Lil Yachty, to make the trip to Flint to see Rio and get on a track together. 

Nuance got on the phone with Slaughter 3 Times to get a better perspective of Rio Da Yung OG’s impact on his community and the rap culture at large. A Flint native, Slaughter started his clothing company Autoworld, naming after the defunct amusement park that Ford built and quickly abandoned in the 1980s as the auto industry left the city. Having known the talented Flint artist for years, he describes Rio as much more than just an unlikely success story but a light of hope and empathy in a place that desperately needs it: “I had already seen past him being a rapper. I’ve seen a philosopher, I’ve seen the teacher, I have seen a prophet.”  

Around 2019, Slaughter 3 Times got a call in the middle of the night from his favorite Detroit rapper, Euro Pean, telling him to pull up to a local rapper’s crib since he was in town. So Slaughter pulled up to Rio’s for the first time at around 2 am and was surprised to find a whole community working the night away under one roof: 

“I walk in his crib, and you got the babies in there getting diapers changed; you got OG Uncles, probably fiend; you got crannies in there cooking food, and you walk in his back row, and it’s at least 15 dudes in chair,s and he got this makeshift studio with Euro Pean in there; I saw Cardiac Edwards there before he really took off with his cameras; and I just saw all these people who are in this one room to record because they want to get a feature from Yung Rio Da OG. That’s when it fucked me up. Damn. He’s really doing it. He can’t even go anywhere. So that just gave me the inspiration to look at Autoworld and be like ‘I know I can do something with this.’”

Taking the time to walk the Nuance team through Flint’s untold cultural history and Rio’s rise to prominence, Slaughter 3 Times contextualized Rio’s importance as a local symbol of perseverance. Like his persistent lyrical punchlines over song-length verses, Rio keeps pounding the pavement with a commitment to his craft no matter the obstacles. Soon coming over to the house regularly to show drop off free Autoworld merch, Slaughter explains he never charged Rio because his music genuinely moves him: 

“When he spit on Testers, ‘Dope fiends, man, I love ’em / My people get high, so I can’t do shit but trust ’em / In the dope house by myself with two onions / Tears fallin’ down my fiend face, I made him cut ‘em,’ when I heard that, that lyric fucked my head up …  This ain’t regular: he’s a rapper but he’s also a philosopher. Because I’ve heard dope rap, but I’ve never heard anybody talk about selling dope, but the level of compassion that he had for the addict. It made me think about a whole nother scale to where I knew this kid could potentially have college courses being done on his lyrics and the impact of the dealer and the compassion and looking through the eyes of an addict. Nobody has ever done that.”

While Rio Da Yung OG is already a local legend in Flint and respected by his peers across the county, The F Tape demonstrates he’s got a career’s-worth more to say and the talent to separate himself from the pack. While the timing of his incarceration was unfortunate, Rio’s determined to finish what he started and uplift his city by achieving notoriety and respect for his music and Flint’s distinct hip-hop style, which has long been overdue.

In a story tragically similar to Rio’s, Flint’s original hip-hop pioneers, The Dayton Family, took the visceral realities of Dayton Ave to the mainstream and were headed straight for the top of the burgeoning 90s scene when a legal conviction took a $3 million-dollar record deal off the table. In a butterfly effect moment for hip-hop, the labels took a page out of the original Autoworld’s playbook and abandoned Flint to invest in the rising scene in Atlanta, leading to the eventual blow-ups of acts like Outkast and Goodie Mob and the blue-collar Michigan town never got its moment in the sun. 

Nuance will dive deeper into Flint’s industrial, musical, and cultural history in an ongoing exclusive series. But for now, sit back and enjoy the new Rio Da Yung OG until his new album arrives later this year.