walking upstream…
Nicki Nicole
photo: mega 97.9 nyc · cc by 3.0 ↗Nicki Nicole
Nicole Denise Cucco grew up in Rosario, Argentina, in a house where the only music in steady rotation was Dread Mar I's reggae hit "Tú sin mí" — her mother's daily alarm tone. Real inspiration came later, in internet cafés, where she found Lil Wayne and followed his lead into Rosario's freestyle-battle scene, where local MCs like Jonavi noticed her instinct for melody inside the rhymes. Discovered by producer Gonzalo Ferreyra in 2018, she released "Wapo Traketero" the next year and became, at nineteen, the first Argentine woman to top the country's Hot 100 with "Mamichula." The albums since — Parte de Mí, Alma, Naiki — have widened that early rap chassis into reggaeton, R&B and torch-song balladry, earning her a Grammy nomination and an audience well beyond Argentina.
the sound in question
2020
MamichulaNicki Nicole
walk the tributaries ↓
Lil Wayne2000s · Hip hop / Southern hip-hop / Trap
Nicole has called Lil Wayne her 'first inspiration' — the artist she found scrolling through internet cafés as a teenager, and the reason she started going to freestyle battles around Rosario in the first place. What carried over wasn't a specific sound so much as a method: dense, syllable-stacked wordplay delivered with a conversational sneer, treating each verse like a puzzle worked out loud.
listen: upstream & here
2008
A MilliLil Wayne
2019
Wapo TraketeroNicki Nicole
listen forPut 'A Milli' next to 'Wapo Traketero' — both ride a stripped-down, hypnotic loop that mostly exists to give the rapper room to stack internal rhymes and brag-lines on top of each other without pausing for breath.
Nathy Peluso2020s · Latin alternative / Neo soul / Hip hop
Nicole has named fellow Argentine Nathy Peluso as an artist who narrowed her own taste toward rap, trap and hip-hop specifically, and the two have stayed close since — sharing a Coachella bill in 2022 and a verse together on Christina Aguilera's 'Pa Mis Muchachas.' What carries into Nicole's own writing is Peluso's brand of confidence: full-chested, funny, unwilling to shrink a lyric down to sound more polite.
listen: upstream & heresource: Infobae ↗
2017
CorasheNathy Peluso
2019
DivaNicki Nicole
listen forSet Peluso's breakout 'Corashe' against Nicole's 'Diva' — both open with a spoken, almost theatrical self-introduction before the beat drops, a woman narrating her own arrival rather than waiting to be described.
Amy Winehouse2000s · Soul / R&B / Jazz
In interviews about her rise, Nicole has pointed to Amy Winehouse's live performances as a formative discovery — a singer treating heartbreak as something to perform at full, unguarded volume rather than tuck away. That theatrical rawness resurfaces whenever Nicole strips the trap production back to just her voice and a slow tempo, letting a breakup narrate itself in real time.
listen: upstream & here
2006
Back to BlackAmy Winehouse
2023
NO voy a llorar :')Nicki Nicole
listen forCompare 'Back to Black's funeral-march delivery of grief with 'No voy a llorar :')' — both use a deliberately unhurried, almost spoken cadence to sell a lyric insisting the singer is fine while the arrangement says otherwise.