Latest Release
- 6 SEPT 2024
- 1 Song
- I Smoked Away My Brain (I'm God x Demons Mashup) [feat. Imogen Heap & Clams Casino] - Single · 2023
- Sundress - Single · 2018
- LONG.LIVE.A$AP (Deluxe Edition) · 2012
- AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP · 2015
- Negro Swan · 2018
- Good for You (feat. A$AP Rocky) - Single · 2015
- Cozy Tapes, Vol. 1: Friends · 2016
- TESTING · 2018
- LONG.LIVE.A$AP (Deluxe Edition) · 2013
- LONG.LIVE.A$AP (Deluxe Edition) · 2013
Essential Albums
- Beginning with the eerily prophetic opening bars of LONG.LIVE.A$AP’s title track—“I thought I’d probably die in prison/Expensive taste in women”—A$AP Rocky struck a unique tone on his major-label debut album. Obviously, hip-hop and the Black community at large had no shortage of justice martyrs and Dapper Dans prior to his auspicious arrival. Yet the artist born Rakim Mayers stood out most for defying trends as much as he set them, refusing to conform to anyone’s perceived norms. Guided by young luminary A$AP Yams and backed by the A$AP Mob, the Harlem-based MC didn’t sound like what people expected from NYC rap music at the time. Many of his early critics grappled with the overt Houston and, more generally, Southern hip-hop influences on his work, like “Purple Swag (Remix)” with Bun B and Paul Wall as well as the preceding LIVE.LOVE.A$AP mixtape. The deep, syrupy vocal effect employed for the choruses of “Goldie” and “PMW (All I Really Need)” recalls the legendary DJ Screw’s codeine-laced wizardry, while Clams Casino’s dissonant and narcotic production honours that legacy on “LVL” and the Santigold-featuring “Hell”. Yet any attempt by journalists or listeners to neatly regionalise Rocky’s musical vision for LONG.LIVE.A$AP would be futile given the choices and the execution that define the album. Untethered and inspired, “F**kin’ Problems” defiantly mashed together Atlanta’s 2 Chainz, Toronto’s Drake and Compton’s Kendrick Lamar into something that sounded as if it had come from nowhere or, perhaps, anywhere. On the magnificent posse exemplar “1 Train”, he wields verses by Action Bronson, Big K.R.I.T., Danny Brown and Joey Bada$$, among others, into a blog-rap weapon of mass appeal/destruction. Uncannily attuned to the zeitgeist, he even tapped emo dude-turned-arena DJ Skrillex for the ubiquitous trap-EDM hybrid “Wild for the Night”, which set the high-water mark for all other such rapper collabs in that part of the electronic music scene. Then there’s, of course, Rocky’s public image. Curating between streetwear cred and couture savvy, he simultaneously had the block and the runway in a proverbial chokehold. Marked by a dry-clean-only laundry list of luxe references, the Friendzone-produced “Fashion Killa” laid out a wardrobe manifesto almost as audacious as Karl Marx pamphlets or Martin Luther’s theses. Amid the song’s poetic playfulness lies a genuine heart, with its romantic reference to Rihanna and a desire for progeny “flyer than their parents” proving wildly prescient. A decade later, the power and potency of LONG.LIVE.A$AP has its tendrils all but fully embedded in the culture. As hip-hop’s tastes become increasingly more expensive and even rarefied, Rocky’s resonant impact appears inarguably clear.
- “My mixtape is better than a lot of people’s albums,” A$AP Rocky boasted just days after the release of his 2011 debut set, LIVE.LOVE.A$AP. The Harlem rapper wasn’t wrong: LIVE.LOVE.A$AP would become became synonymous with 2010s hip-hop and pop culture, while simultaneously skyrocketing the east coast artist’s career (not to mention the profile of his A$AP Mob collective). The roll-out for LIVE.LOVE.A$AP commenced with “Purple Swag”, Rocky’s first-ever single. The late A$AP Yams, who co-founded A$AP Mob—and who played a major role in strategising Rocky’s marketing—leaned heavily into the then-popular social media site Tumblr to promote the track. The plan worked: Thanks to “Purple Swag”, a bidding war over A$SAP Rocky ensued, with the rapper eventually scoring a $3 million deal with Polo Grounds Music, an imprint of RCA. Shortly after, he released LIVE.LOVE.A$AP, a syrupy sweet and slow pour of no-nonsense New York rap, intermixed with an unmistakably southern sound. The mixtape exemplified Rocky and the A$AP Mob’s understanding of rap’s landscape from coast to coast, captured by the project’s cross-regional sound: In cuts like “Get Lit” and “Purple Swag: Chapter 2”, the chopped-and-screwed Houston sound dominates, while Los Angeles rapper Schoolboy Q guests on “Brand New Guy”. Still, LIVE.LOVE.A$AP is unequivocally a product of Harlem, with Rocky and his producers—including Clams Casino and A$AP Ty Beats—channelling New York’s intensity and boom-bap sound on tracks like “Trilla”. And though Rocky was rarely hailed as a top lyricist, his attitude and style was unmatched. A trailblazing, star-making bit of 2010s hip-hop, LIVE.LOVE.A$AP is a testament to the braggadocious rapper’s charming arrogance, one that’s evident in his self-bestowed nickname: “Pretty motherfucker”.
- 2024
- 2024
- 2023
- 2023
Artist Playlists
- The Harlem fashion icon offers an ambitious, omnivorous version of modern hip-hop.
- Smooky MarGielaa
- A$AP Rocky on his song “HIGHJACK.”
- From Rakim to A$AP Rocky, rap gets into a New York state of mind.
- The artist breaks down the meaning behind “Same Problems?”
- The rapper on “Same Problems?” and Zane Lowechats with Fall Out Boy.
- New music from Rich the Kid, Flume & HWLS, and Tame Impala.
- The Harlem MC drops by, plus Flipp Dinero and DJ First Choice.
- The MC FaceTimes in to premiere his track “Let Me See.”
About A$AP Rocky
In 2018, A$AP Rocky staged a “performance installation” called Lab Rat on the seventh floor of venerated auction house Sotheby’s. That Rocky moved in arty, high-society circles wasn’t news: He’d done the fashion thing, gone to the Met Gala, collaborated with Raf Simons when Simons was at Dior. Still, the moment felt like a landmark, a measure of cultural influence that few rappers had attained. More than just a rapper, though, Rocky was a representation of a next-gen model of hip-hop, a post-internet artist who synthesised decades of rap history into a sound that was seamless, catchy, mainstream but with a sense of style that felt elevated. He was Gucci, he was street, he was New York without the burden of having to carry that New York torch. He made albums the way interior designers made rooms: unlikely juxtapositions, interesting connections. Everywhere he went, from Sotheby’s on down, it seemed like Rocky belonged. Born Rakim Mayers in 1988, Rocky fell in with the Harlem-based A$AP Mob in his late teens—a collective that, like Odd Future in Los Angeles, functioned as much like a creative agency as a rap crew, bringing a sense of self-sufficiency and independence to the mainstream machine. By the time he released his first full-length, 2013’s LONG.LIVE.A$AP, he’d already toured with Drake and performed at the Pitchfork Music Festival, straddling mainstream and indie without pulling a muscle. AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP came out in 2015, followed by TESTING in 2018, each moving progressively further away from pop without slipping on the charts.
- HOMETOWN
- Harlem, NY, United States
- BORN
- 3 October 1988
- GENRE
- Hip-Hop/Rap