On Nino Paid’s second full-length album, 2025’s Love Me as I Am, the DMV rap star reckons with the trauma and death that plagued his rocky road to hip-hop success. Opener “Something to Live For” begins with mournful piano chords and a spoken word introduction from Nino, who talks about his mother and his departed brother’s relationship via his own bond with his daughter. He asks, “But then I think to myself like, what if I lose my daughter?/Like what I’ma do? Like where I’ma go in life?” It’s this drive that animates the entire album. Later on, he states matter of factly, “I’m doing all this shit for my kid.” This passion and desperate hunger for success drives the record, whether Nino is reflecting on being a role model in his community (“Boy Meets World”), or how drugs have temporarily numbed his pain, only to cost him more than he could afford (“Tyreek Hill”). It’s a remarkably vulnerable effort, with Nino Paid insulating his daughter from the world that caused so much pain yet helped him reach such great heights too.