Harlem-born rapper A$AP Rocky used fashion and music to escape from the harsh realities of his upbringing. As a child, his family moved between homeless shelters, he lost his brother to a shooting, and his father went to jail for drug dealing. Despite all this, Rocky said in a 2012 interview, these difficulties made him who he is.
As a music producer and hip-hop fan, I naturally got excited when A$AP Rocky announced he would be dropping his first mixtape on streaming platforms. I’ve been combing through his discography for years ever since hearing “F***** Problems” on the radio. When he dropped Testing, I was a sophomore in high school. This was the first time I sat waiting for Rocky to drop an album and where my appreciation grew for him as an artist. As I began listening to his older albums, his style imprinted on me drastically and I quickly became a huge fan. You can hear the evolution of his artistry throughout all his music, and as someone who believes in artistic diversity, I was impressed. His song “F***** Problems” featuring 2 Chainz, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar was his first Billboard Hot 100 hit and peaked at No. 8 in 2012. Rocky is preparing to release his latest album “Don’t Be Dumb,” and recently dropped three singles ahead of its release.
With Rocky about to drop, I thought it’d be a good time to go back to his first mixtape: “Live.Love.A$AP,” released when he was 23 years old. This album has an amateur charm that pairs well with the creative decisions in each track. It’s a psychedelic experience, covering topics like drugs, women, and a euphoric lifestyle. It stands out from Rocky’s other albums with the distinct boom-bap/trap vibes throughout. This is a more personal project, with lots of tracks having features from people close to Rocky’s circle. Clams Casino was the bulk producer in this project, shaping it with his unique style of production. I scavenged through an old Reddit page where Clams answered questions from fans about his career and production. He uses a lot of samples as well as the manipulation of sounds to create trippy instrumentals.
Among the features on Live.Love.A$AP are ScHoolboy Q and members of the A$AP Mob: Nast and Twelvyy. With ScHoolboy Q still fairly new to the hip-hop game at the time and later becoming one of Top Dawg’s best rappers, the song “Brand New Guy” is a special moment in history with the two rising artists. The A$AP Mob track “Trilla” is a fun song where the Mob talks about getting money and being “trilla,” which is slang for keeping it real. The song “Acid Drip” is about craving drugs and describes a drug dealer/womanizer character who hangs on the corner of a street selling acid and lean. “Leaf” is a more personal record where Rocky shouts out his kin and expresses being exhausted from the struggle, resorting to drugs for a sense of relief. “Keep it G” and “Wassup” have a slower tempo and make you feel like you’re chilling with the homies and partaking in ritualistic herb activities. Then you have “Peso,” a more upbeat vibe with a nostalgic sample, where Rocky flaunts his robust rapping techniques. This paired with the reverbed-out boom-bap drums gave Rocky a unique style; mixing old and new flavors of hip-hop. He is no stranger to using pitched-down vocals like a chopped and screwed record. It created a new appeal for trap and boom-bap fans and shows that A$AP Rocky is one of the most unique rappers of the 2010s. Peso was one of the lead singles off the album and is largely responsible for Rocky’s fame.
Live.Love.A$AP was the blueprint for what has now evolved into a special type of artist. Rocky has translated his signature Pretty Boy Flacko aura into many other forms of hip-hop. He developed his style to fit different genres and branch out from his signature cloud rap routes. Tyler the Creator’s “Who Dat Boy” is a wildly different kind of sound, but is one of Rocky’s best features. We can’t forget his wildly popular song Sundress, where he steps into the indie genre with the instrumental while still managing to put a verse down. Live.Love.A$AP started a domino effect that gave birth to many other projects and stayed one of the most relevant projects out of the 2010’s.
Since releasing Testing in 2018, A$AP Rocky’s gone through a lot. In 2019 after he was released from jail in Sweden for assault, he dropped a single titled “Babushka Boi” accompanied by a wacky music video. He did not release any new music for a while after, but in 2022 was featured in three songs as well as releasing his own single “DMB (Das My B****).” DMB was about his soulmate and now wife Rhianna, who in the time since “Testing” was busy creating a family with Rocky. With that being said, it makes me think about what we can expect from “Don’t Be Dumb”.
In his recent interviews, Rocky seems confident it’s his best album to date. He revealed that a song with Fatman Scoop, Slick Rick, Flava Flav, Morrissey, and Busta Rhymes would be on the project. His recently released singles “Highjack” and “Tailor Swif” are two electric concert-ready tracks with catchy hooks and fast rhythms. Rocky’s most recent single is a rainy-day vibe produced by Alchemist and featuring J-Cole. It’s speculated that other legends like Pharrell, Metro Boomin, Tyler, the Creator, and Mike Dean all have a part in this project. This brings me back to what I said about artistic diversity. It seems that Rocky is taking more leaps forward by working with producers he has yet to collaborate with. At the same time, he’s creating full circle moments by including artists he’s worked with in the past and ones that have influenced him as a child. On paper, it sounds like we are about to hear Rocky’s most ambitious album to date. The album was initially slated for release on August, 30th 2024. However, due to sample clearance issues and leaks, he decided to push it back to the fall. There’s no new release date yet, but we can expect nothing less than greatness from our friend A$AP Rocky.
