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Nettspend

Nettspend

The prince of post-rage rap with a glimmering aura to match his crown, Nettspend is an icon at the tender age of 18. The Richmond, Virginia, born and bred artist isn’t just the cherubic face of a musical movement that burbled up from the depths of the internet — he’s a generational force and a rockstar in the truest genre-transcendent sense, able to enrapture audiences from stages around the globe, increasingly whispered about in fashion circles, and debated by critics who’ve been comparing him to both Kurt Cobain and Justin Bieber from the jump. He also has a knack for creating a moment, whether (recently) exiting a star-spangled limo directly into his riotous set at Rolling Loud California or (in his early days) moving the gig to a skatepark to avert an actual riot at an oversold NYC club. But most telling of all is his massive following, cultlike not in size but in their fervor as they track his every move online, inspire venues to beef up barricades, and disrupt traffic by chasing him down the street with Sharpies. As The FADER put it in their review of his feverishly buzzing 2024 mixtape, Bad Ass F*cking Kid: “Nettspend absolutely has It.” Armed with a woozy flow, dizzyingly bit-crushed beats, and a prodigious ear for unexpected hooks, Nettspend innately knows how to build hype and meet the challenge of living up to it. His music has been called a “symphony of stimuli” by i-D and “carefree, exhilarating, and made for mosh pits” by Interview Magazine. Before he’d even dropped a proper project, Rolling Stone put him at the “the vanguard of underground rap.” An early one-off, “shine n peace,” landed on The New York Times’ “Best Songs of 2023” list — he was 16 years old then. Nettspend’s work with rising rappers like the 1c34 collective and cutting-edge producers like Ok, evilgiane, and Reklus1ive has catapulted him to collaborations with the likes of Kenny Beats, Bobby Raps, and PinkPantheress (who joined him onstage at a sold-out L.A. show in 2024). All the same, BAFK — which debuted on the Billboard Hot 200 — served up 15 previously unheard tracks without a single feature. Nettspend’s millions of monthly listeners across platforms ate it up, but if that explosive project seemed like a victory lap, it wasn’t. It was an opening salvo. In March 2025, Nettspend celebrated his 18th birthday by dropping his red-hot xaviersobased team-up “Impact,” and also by throwing a headline-making party / performance in a 17th floor penthouse that he landed on top of in a helicopter. As High Snobiety reported, fans “jetted to L.A. on last-minute plane tickets,” while GQ cited the rapturous event in a lengthy coming-of-age profile that ran three days later, placing the young man at the center of a veritable whirlwind of activity. True enough, he’d only just returned from Paris Fashion Week where he’d made his runway debut with Prada’s sister label Miu Miu, building on a growing sartorial portfolio that so far includes modeling for Heaven by Marc Jacobs, performing at Vogue World Paris alongside Playboi Carti / Opium producer f1lthy, and hobnobbing with Anna Wintour. His fans have also turned each date on his sold-out BAFK! and Invert tours — which lit up mosh pits across North America and beyond for months on end — into a summit for Gen Z’s most stylish, inspiring an i-D scene photoshoot titled “The Best Dressed Kids in New York Are at the Nettspend Show.” Nettspend also developed BAFK’s striking visuals with designer-director Eli Russell Linnetz (of the high-fashion label ERL), who photographed the cover — one of many details that, despite the free-flowing energy of his songs, speaks to the intentionality of Nettspend’s vision. As adept at he is at conveying raw emotion through wild ad-libs and unrestrained verses, it’s easy to fly past BAFK’s connective themes — a blurry spin of remembrances and revelations, impossible swag and encroaching fame, rulebook-burning and reverent references to past rap iconoclasts. In truth, he spent countless sleepless nights in the studio perfecting his layered and constantly evolving compositions with twin goals in mind. One, to deliver a set of songs guaranteed to hit live (mission accomplished, as fans from Texas to Tokyo have been screaming his bars back at him). Two, to stop the swirl long enough that he can punctuate and process his rise. After all, amid highlights like squelching fan favorite “Tommy,” the Grimes-sampling “Skipping Class,” and the Jersey-inflected “Beach Leak,” BAFK’s most quoted line is “Growing up get weird.” As rare as his current status is, the artist born Gunner Shepardson seems destined for this life. Raised in Richmond with music in his blood — his dad is a country singer and his aunt was a DJ — he began making music in fifth grade at just 10 years old, pulling inspiration from superstars as stylistically diverse as Future, Michael Jackson, Bieber, and, eventually, Chief Keef. He rode dirt bikes and skateboards, got kicked out of his parents’ respective homes a time or two, and found himself increasingly drawn to recording in the meantime. After Covid wrecked high school for him, he left during his freshman year and threw himself into music, heavily utilizing the app BandLab, which allowed him to turn random locations into hit factories for the extremely online. Made in his mom’s car in 10 minutes, his viral 2023 breakout “Drankdrankdrank” garnered tens of millions of streams and hailed the arrival of a polarizing, game-changing presence. Now, with fanfare on all sides and a ravenous fanbase hungry for more, it would be easy for a young rapper like Nettspend to swerve or snap beneath the pressure. But perhaps the coolest part about him is how unpressed he is by all of it — that consistency will be key to his longevity. So what’s the secret to all this success? For Nettspend it’s a laser-sharp focus on the music. As he told veteran MTV News reporter John Norris backstage at a New York show: “It’s art. And you’ve got to roll with the punches and stay tunnel vision, no matter what. All the other shit? That’s just not what I do it for.” For all the right reasons, Nettspend is here to stay.

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About 
Nettspend

The prince of post-rage rap with a glimmering aura to match his crown, Nettspend is an icon at the tender age of 18. The Richmond, Virginia, born and bred artist isn’t just the cherubic face of a musical movement that burbled up from the depths of the internet — he’s a generational force and a rockstar in the truest genre-transcendent sense, able to enrapture audiences from stages around the globe, increasingly whispered about in fashion circles, and debated by critics who’ve been comparing him to both Kurt Cobain and Justin Bieber from the jump. He also has a knack for creating a moment, whether (recently) exiting a star-spangled limo directly into his riotous set at Rolling Loud California or (in his early days) moving the gig to a skatepark to avert an actual riot at an oversold NYC club. But most telling of all is his massive following, cultlike not in size but in their fervor as they track his every move online, inspire venues to beef up barricades, and disrupt traffic by chasing him down the street with Sharpies. As The FADER put it in their review of his feverishly buzzing 2024 mixtape, Bad Ass F*cking Kid: “Nettspend absolutely has It.” Armed with a woozy flow, dizzyingly bit-crushed beats, and a prodigious ear for unexpected hooks, Nettspend innately knows how to build hype and meet the challenge of living up to it. His music has been called a “symphony of stimuli” by i-D and “carefree, exhilarating, and made for mosh pits” by Interview Magazine. Before he’d even dropped a proper project, Rolling Stone put him at the “the vanguard of underground rap.” An early one-off, “shine n peace,” landed on The New York Times’ “Best Songs of 2023” list — he was 16 years old then. Nettspend’s work with rising rappers like the 1c34 collective and cutting-edge producers like Ok, evilgiane, and Reklus1ive has catapulted him to collaborations with the likes of Kenny Beats, Bobby Raps, and PinkPantheress (who joined him onstage at a sold-out L.A. show in 2024). All the same, BAFK — which debuted on the Billboard Hot 200 — served up 15 previously unheard tracks without a single feature. Nettspend’s millions of monthly listeners across platforms ate it up, but if that explosive project seemed like a victory lap, it wasn’t. It was an opening salvo. In March 2025, Nettspend celebrated his 18th birthday by dropping his red-hot xaviersobased team-up “Impact,” and also by throwing a headline-making party / performance in a 17th floor penthouse that he landed on top of in a helicopter. As High Snobiety reported, fans “jetted to L.A. on last-minute plane tickets,” while GQ cited the rapturous event in a lengthy coming-of-age profile that ran three days later, placing the young man at the center of a veritable whirlwind of activity. True enough, he’d only just returned from Paris Fashion Week where he’d made his runway debut with Prada’s sister label Miu Miu, building on a growing sartorial portfolio that so far includes modeling for Heaven by Marc Jacobs, performing at Vogue World Paris alongside Playboi Carti / Opium producer f1lthy, and hobnobbing with Anna Wintour. His fans have also turned each date on his sold-out BAFK! and Invert tours — which lit up mosh pits across North America and beyond for months on end — into a summit for Gen Z’s most stylish, inspiring an i-D scene photoshoot titled “The Best Dressed Kids in New York Are at the Nettspend Show.” Nettspend also developed BAFK’s striking visuals with designer-director Eli Russell Linnetz (of the high-fashion label ERL), who photographed the cover — one of many details that, despite the free-flowing energy of his songs, speaks to the intentionality of Nettspend’s vision. As adept at he is at conveying raw emotion through wild ad-libs and unrestrained verses, it’s easy to fly past BAFK’s connective themes — a blurry spin of remembrances and revelations, impossible swag and encroaching fame, rulebook-burning and reverent references to past rap iconoclasts. In truth, he spent countless sleepless nights in the studio perfecting his layered and constantly evolving compositions with twin goals in mind. One, to deliver a set of songs guaranteed to hit live (mission accomplished, as fans from Texas to Tokyo have been screaming his bars back at him). Two, to stop the swirl long enough that he can punctuate and process his rise. After all, amid highlights like squelching fan favorite “Tommy,” the Grimes-sampling “Skipping Class,” and the Jersey-inflected “Beach Leak,” BAFK’s most quoted line is “Growing up get weird.” As rare as his current status is, the artist born Gunner Shepardson seems destined for this life. Raised in Richmond with music in his blood — his dad is a country singer and his aunt was a DJ — he began making music in fifth grade at just 10 years old, pulling inspiration from superstars as stylistically diverse as Future, Michael Jackson, Bieber, and, eventually, Chief Keef. He rode dirt bikes and skateboards, got kicked out of his parents’ respective homes a time or two, and found himself increasingly drawn to recording in the meantime. After Covid wrecked high school for him, he left during his freshman year and threw himself into music, heavily utilizing the app BandLab, which allowed him to turn random locations into hit factories for the extremely online. Made in his mom’s car in 10 minutes, his viral 2023 breakout “Drankdrankdrank” garnered tens of millions of streams and hailed the arrival of a polarizing, game-changing presence. Now, with fanfare on all sides and a ravenous fanbase hungry for more, it would be easy for a young rapper like Nettspend to swerve or snap beneath the pressure. But perhaps the coolest part about him is how unpressed he is by all of it — that consistency will be key to his longevity. So what’s the secret to all this success? For Nettspend it’s a laser-sharp focus on the music. As he told veteran MTV News reporter John Norris backstage at a New York show: “It’s art. And you’ve got to roll with the punches and stay tunnel vision, no matter what. All the other shit? That’s just not what I do it for.” For all the right reasons, Nettspend is here to stay.

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