It’s the sound of a young MC leaping into the unknown. ASAP is emotionally raw and sonically omnivorous, a maverick statement seemingly unconcerned with radio hits. Hip-hop is in the mood for bold gambles - think West’s Yeezus and Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (which Rocky says he has only skimmed: “I got about two songs I liked”). “All my emotions, my thoughts, my feelings. “I just poured it all out on this album,” says Rocky, nodding his head to the beat. 8 Billboard Hot 100 hit that has sold 2.4 million copies, will make of introspective tracks that find Rocky singing, digging ’70s rock and advising, like some Woodstock dreamer, “Harmony, love, drugs and peace is all we need.” It’s anyone’s guess what people who loved 2013’s horndog posse cut “F-in’ Problems,” a No. Like the other songs he plays, featuring Danger Mouse and an unknown British singer-guitarist named Joe Fox, it’s gorgeous, slurred, reflective and audaciously psychedelic. Rocky clicks his trackpad and fires up a Ronson production based on an interpolation of “In a Broken Dream,” a 1972 hit by Rod Stewart and Python Lee Jackson. He looked at me like I was crazy and proceeded to play me a chopped-and-screwed remix that he made of ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards.’ He played me a lot of amazing music that I had never heard of.” “I asked him if he had heard of Tame Impala. “His musical knowledge runs far and wide,” says producer-DJ Mark Ronson, who worked on At. You f- with Electric Warrior? That f-ing album? Man! Let’s talk about perfection.” Cole and Lil B, his reference points for the album are more outre: Portishead, Massive Attack, Thom Yorke and “old ’60s psychedelic shit” like The Kinks and The Stooges. “I love that -aesthetic.” Although he’s enthusiastic about the state of hip-hop, praising the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Earl Sweatshirt, Action Bronson, J. “It’s one of my favorite films at the moment,” he says. One sign of his ever-expanding interests is taped to the wall of the apartment: a grid of stills from Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which serves as inspiration for the short film he’s making to accompany the new album. Now, though, Rocky’s shaping his own future. Yams saw himself as Yoda to Rocky’s Luke Skywalker, helping the rapper to find his voice, hone his sound and build his profile. Yams was the well-connected hip-hop scenester who, in 2007, invited the 20-year-old Rocky to join his Harlem-based collective A$AP Mob (A$AP stands for Always Strive and Prosper), which most notably also includes the hard-hitting A$AP Ferg. The closest person Rocky ever had to a collaborator, his longtime friend, mentor and business partner A$AP Yams, aka Steven Rodriguez, died in January of an accidental drug overdose, at age 26.
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He knows what he wants and doesn’t compromise for anyone.”Ī$AP Rocky Reveals How Fashion Made Him Cry In New Ferragamo Video Series “What I love about him is he doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
“We’re both into a lot of obscure things that guys from our environment aren’t normally into,” says rapper Danny Brown. If you want to consider my shit alternative, so be it. If leather’s popular this year, I’m just going to have to go with suede. “I don’t like doing anything anyone else is doing. (He also plans to launch a design project this year or next with his stylist, Matthew Henson.) Rocky makes it all look easy.
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Scott tells Billboard that he thinks of Rocky “like a brother - someone I can count on.” Meanwhile, Rocky made his movie debut with an effortlessly charismatic turn in Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope, a hit at Sundance in January. He has, arguably, entered the world of high fashion more smoothly than West, collaborating with designers Raf Simons and Jeremy Scott. Like Andre 3000 and Kanye West, Rocky positions himself as a dandy who loves hip-hop but won’t settle for being just a rapper. His rapping incorporates several regional styles but belongs to none, and his music has a heady, hazy quality, like a party gone awry. ASAP, earning an eye-popping $3 million deal with Sony/RCA on the strength of a killer trifecta of charisma, versatility and taste. Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, became an instant star with the release of his 2011 mixtape Live.
“Once I did that, I not only proved to the world but to myself that I could do anything that I wanted.” “Last time I was more concerned, subconsciously, with doing something mainstream,” he says. 1 on the Billboard 200 and has sold 518,000 copies, according to Nielsen Music. It is, Rocky promises, a very different beast from his first album, 2013’s Long. THIS COVER STORY FIRST APPEARED IN BILLBOARD MAGAZINE GET THIS WEEK’S ISSUE HERE OR SUBSCRIBE TO BILLBOARD HERE
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