Nettspend at 19: Fame Is 'A Gift and a Curse,' and NXO Is Next

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Nettspend is 19, and at least one reviewer has already called him “midcareer.” He doesn’t pretend the speed is easy. “I feel like being famous, as much as it might sound crazy, was my only option,” the Richmond, Virginia rapper told W magazine in June, in a dressing room at the Gucci store in downtown New York, for a feature published Sept. 17. “It really makes me anxious. It’s amazing. It’s a gift and a curse.”

His last two months have run in two directions. In August he released “sober,” a softer single about addiction. In September he put out his first song with Che, the blown-out “KickAss (Pull Up Pls).” And the joint album with OsamaSon that he teased in June is, in Complex’s words this month, what’s “next up.”

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The stakes come from a debut that didn’t settle the argument about him. Early Life Crisis, 21 tracks on Grade A and Interscope with YoungBoy Never Broke Again and OsamaSon as guests, opened at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 dated March 21 with 20,000 first-week units, per Complex. It also reached No. 2 on Spotify’s global and U.S. album charts, per uDiscover Music. Even its defenders hedge. Complex put it on its best rap albums of 2026 so far on Oct. 8 while admitting “some day ones were hard on this one.” The FADER’s review granted that detractors would be right to call it “muddled and bloated,” then argued the real problem was too many ideas, not too few.

Vulnerable, then turnt

His own summary of the music is the best one: “Some of it’s vulnerable. Some of it’s super turnt. Sometimes I’m going bozo,” he told W. “sober,” produced by reklus1ve and released Aug. 21, is the first kind, and HotNewHipHop heard it bring his rage side “down to Earth a bit.” In the black-and-white video he walks out of the ocean with a fresh buzz cut and skates through Los Angeles at night, with cameos from his mother and OsamaSon, per uDiscover Music. Watch it below.

Nettspend - soberNettspendVEVO · Watch on YouTube ↗

Complex, naming him one of its 50 L.A. creatives moving culture forward on Sept. 30, put the shift plainly: “Now he’s showing us he’s growing up.” In the same blurb it called him “still one of the kings of the modern underground.”

Two weeks after “sober” came the super-turnt side. “KickAss (Pull Up Pls),” out Sept. 4, is his first collaboration with Che, the Atlanta rapper whose album Rest in Bass The FADER counted among the debts on Early Life Crisis. Stereogum’s Tom Breihan said the beat sounds like a file “dipped in corrosive acid,” and HotNewHipHop set Che’s “dark and deep growl” against Nettspend’s “more nasal approach.” Complex’s October ranking of the hottest rappers right now has them back to back: Nettspend at No. 42, Che at No. 43.

Fashion keeps calling, too. A year after his runway debut at Miu Miu, he walked Demna’s first Gucci show in Milan on Feb. 27 in a lavender snakeskin tee and silver snakeskin pants, his right arm tucked behind his back, as GQ noticed. In June, Gucci gave him its Wooster Street store in SoHo for a free fan meet-and-greet and an Early Life Crisis press night, per Hypebeast. It’s the same luxury crossover running through the 10 artists leading the underground this year. OsamaSon, who led Balenciaga’s High Summer lookbook, told GQ that he and friends like Nettspend used to talk about this on Discord in 2022 and 2023; now the brands they used to just buy want them in campaigns. “We really did that shit,” he said.

What’s next: NXO

Nettspend has already told fans where to look. In a video interview with the rap commentator 42CEO posted June 13, he said “what y’all should be looking for next is NXO tour—NXO album, NXO tour,” Pitchfork reported. OsamaSon has been on his records since 2023’s “Wake Up,” through 2024’s “Withdrawals” and “Pain Talk” on Early Life Crisis. He once told The FADER that Nettspend was supposed to be on Jump Out, his 2025 album, but fell asleep in the studio. No release date for NXO has been announced.

Whatever arrives first, he knows who it’s for. Asked by W what he would say to the teenagers waiting outside the Gucci store just to watch him get into his car, he answered: “I’m here for you. I do this for you.”

As much as you think you need me, I need you just as much.

Nettspend, W Magazine