The cover of his breakout mixtape, $AP, featuring the star standing in front of an American flag, has become modern rap iconography – one nation under Rocky’s cool. Whatever “swag” meant to early-2010s rap kids, Rocky was dripping in it. He raps cleanly but not uniquely and his lyrics show him to be a man of simple tastes: threads, thuggin’ and admiring his own fine looks.
A$AP – real name Rakim Mayers – will flow over the kind the dusty boom-bap associated with the legendary rapper he was named after, but also acidic Skrillex beats. Who else could be pitched as the successor to New York’s golden-age legends while leaning on subwoofer-rumbling, screwed-up Southern hip-hop? Rocky is an ostentatious impresario who took hollowed-out cloud rap and Odd Future’s lo-fi aesthetic and made it all sound like high-end fashion. Rocky had an idea and message in this album, for sure.A $AP Rocky’s great gift isn’t that he flies above rap trends – it’s that he contorts them at will. “Kids Turned Out Fine” has one of my favorite videos of all time. The music videos that came from this album were also important. This song is just beauty and with a Lauryn Hill sample, yes. This was before we got Kids See Ghosts (Kanye West- Kid Cudi collab), a beautiful resurgence of Kid Cudi.Īlthough I am a fan of all the tracks for their own reasons, I have to highlight “Purity” with Frank Ocean. I remember my first listen, it had been long since we got anything from Cudi and I did not have any idea he would be on this album until I heard that humming and thought “nooo, could it be?” Yes, it is, and he delivers a polished classic Cudi verse. The mesmerizing humming throughout the song morphs into that iconic Kid Cuddi humming. I blew me away on my first listen, it just bangs, wastes no time. The songs are well produced, with good samples and features.Ī$AP forever remix is of course a standout. This being A$AP’s first album after the death of mentor and producer ASAP Yams obviously the production style was going to be different, however, I thought it was done well. It started off a kick of great releases in 2018. When this album first dropped in May of 2018 I was super happy with it, listened all the way through and was about it.
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