On December 11, 2024, Rio Da Yung OG was released from an Arkansas federal prison after serving three years and eight months of a five-year sentence. Videos popped up on social media and gossip sites showing the Flint, Michigan, rapper hopping in and out of private jets and luxury vehicles, hugging his friends, and generally exuding a sense of deep relief. Two days later, he dropped “RIO FREE,” a nod to the “Free Rio” movement and a blistering addition to the pantheon of first-day-out rap songs. It bookends “Last Day Out,” a wistful track Rio recorded just before his bid, but doesn’t offer the same celebratory imagery he and his team were posting online everywhere. Instead, it’s bleak and acidic, with competing feelings of vitriol and triumph elbowing each other for breathing room over Wayne616 and BlueStrip’s insistent production.
“RIO FREE” was a dual statement of purpose: a reassertion of dominance from one of the most prolific members of the Michigan scene and a promise of a coming deluge of music. Before his incarceration, between 2019 and 2021, Rio had flooded the internet with an endless stream of material, but he didn’t entirely disappear while in prison—a slow, strategic drip of archival recordings kept the seat warm for his return. His style was simple but effective: outrageous one-liners delivered with the cool detachment of a master shit-talker over piano-driven beats that annihilated subwoofers. There was an irresistible urgency to Rio’s music, an energy he largely preserves on RIO FREE, a 26-minute EP released just shy of a month to the day he got out. It makes good on the pledge of its eponymous song, but it’s darker and more anxious than anything before it; you can hear Rio working to get his sea legs back, shifty-eyed and reeling from the years he spent behind bars.
There’s plenty of Rio’s signature aloof brutality—violence gets doled out nonchalantly, often described in single lines; women are mostly two-dimensional sex objects, if they appear at all—but it’s his paranoia and anger that color the project. Rio’s constantly on edge, drinking excessive amounts of lean and hiding beneath a stagnant cloud of weed smoke. He answers calls with his “scary voice” on “Rap War” and backs into parking spots on “OFF-RAP” to ensure he has an exit strategy. His boasts about money often sound as though he’s just counted it again to make sure it’s still there; anyone, friends and family members alike, could be out to get him. Occasionally, he’s able to process these anxieties with his trademark jarring humor: “I’m tired of people askin’ why my cousin tell/I hope that n***a go to jail and don’t get none of his mail,” he raps on “Uncle Sam.” But mostly, he just can’t shake the feeling of an impending reckoning: “I did some bullshit, I know my karma coming,” he asserts on the title track.
There are no features or hooks on RIO FREE, which reveals the limits of Rio’s power. He’s at his best when bouncing off someone else, the friendly competition pushing him into more outrageous territory. Nothing reaches the lunatic highs of his Dumb and Dumb3r series with RMC Mike or his more ludicrous moments in the packed-studio posse cuts that defined the scene (“Tired of buying jewelry and cars, I’m finna buy a goat,” a batshit line from the great Lil Yachty-Michigan-era jam “Run Down,” is an all-timer). His choice of production remains rooted in the sinister syncopated Michigan thump, a classic regional sound that sometimes feels repetitive, but the Milwaukee lowend influence on “Shake Back” is a fresh and welcome departure. Even if Rio is still reacquainting himself with his singular voice, it’s good to have him back.
