The scrappy St Louis rapper broke through in early 2023 with “Pound Town”, the raunchiest viral rap hit since “WAP”, whose perfectly unprintable lyrics and rowdy Tay Keith beat made it an instant “tear the club up” classic. The Nicki Minaj remix of that song, which appears here on Hood Hottest Princess, is a cool hat tip, but Sexyy Red thrives on her lonesome, bellowing out cocky, hilarious strip-club anthems that harken back to Gucci Mane in his late-aughts prime (a comparison she honours on “Female Gucci Mane”). And then there’s “Born by the River”, possibly the only song in recorded history to use a Sam Cooke civil rights anthem as a jumping off point for a tale of hustling drug dealers for snow crabs and Hennessy. It’s Sexyy Red’s world, and we’re just lucky to live in it.