We are in the age of the curator, from meticulously-arranged, aspirational Tumblrs to Drake’s recent stint at Sotheby’s. As it’s grown easier to translate our identities through these careful assemblages of stuff we fuck with, good taste has taken on a new leveraging power. A$AP Rocky, the baby-faced fashion killa and primary figurehead of zeitgeist-wheelie-poppin’ Harlem goon squad A$AP Mob, has always understood this better than anyone else in the rap game. As he should: his own success can be directly traced to early promo on his mentor and A$AP Worldwide co-owner A$AP Yams’ highly influential RealNiggaTumblr, one of the savviest indie-to-major reconnaissance missions this century. That triumph of personal taste has been one of the reasons Rocky’s resonated most with this generation of rap fans and beyond, but it’s also led to his most persistent critique: all vibe, no substance. In between the conceptual Instagram stunts and Harry Potter-themed sartorial wisdom, it’s hard not to wonder about the Rakim Mayers beneath the swaggy labels, and if we’d ever get a lasting impression of his point of view beyond the infinite affirmations that it is, indeed, lit.
There’s been a two-plus year gap between Rocky’s sophomore studio album, At.Long.Last.ASAP, and his chart-topping major label debut, during which he dabbled in fashion design, modeled for Ferragamo, and made his acting debut in Sundance darling Dope. But the most glaring change between then and now is the absence of Yams, or Steven Rodriguez, who died this January at 26 of a drug overdose. Yams’ presence was mostly behind-the-scenes (though he’d often appear in the videos, in all his jiggy splendor), but he was the heart and soul of the A$AP Mob, and Rocky’s success is no short of unfathomable without his guidance. With A.L.L.A.—executive produced by Yams, along with art-rap auteur Danger Mouse—he presents to the world one last relic of he and his best friend’s collaborative vision, and though the album was reportedly completed before Yams’ death, it still feels like an elegy to the closest thing the millennial generation had to its own Diddy or Dame Dash.
Rocky remained understandably private in the aftermath of Yams’ passing, but on A.L.L.A., he seems more open than ever: to the healing properties of hallucinogens, to be sure, but also to revealing parts of his personality that go beyond surface-level. To an extent, this may reflect his recent antipathy towards the much-hyped labels with which he once associated. But it seems more likely a result of growing up, gaining steadier footing in the industry his squad gate-crashed, and coming to terms with himself as more than just a sum of his inspirations and logos. At long last, a real sense of identity has begun to coalesce in Rocky’s work.
"Ok, let’s get past all this swag, trapping, and fashion talking," he exhales on back-to-basics Kanye collab "Jukebox Joints". Turns out, Pretty Flacko’s got real shit to say—though not without the buffer of some par-for-the-course bits of pretty-sounding fluff—and he wastes little time getting to it. Album intro "Holy Ghost" serves as an indictment of the Christian clergy, a grasp towards his own jaded conception of a personal Jesus, and a plea to save his admittedly corrupted soul all the same. It’s clear he’s been sharpening his rap skills on a technical level, too. On "Pharsyde", over a screwed-up take on Danger Mouse’s loping Spaghetti Westernisms, Rocky punctuates a sideways glance at his rapidly gentrifying Uptown kingdom with a loaded "Harlem Shake" reference, the kind of nuanced writing absent from much of his older work. On "Max B", he turns a neck-snapping homage to the incarcerated Wavie One into a commentary on remorseless cops and the prison-industrial complex with newfound lyrical command: "Passed away from a stray from some fake-tough guy/ Now this the kinda story that should make doves cry."
A.L.L.A’s recent singles are among its least interesting moments. All that’s missing from "L$D"'s on-the-nose dorm room psychedelia are the dryer sheets MacGyvered around the smoke detector, though the track makes more sense in album context as something of an extended interlude than it did as a standalone. And "Everyday", with its headline-grabbing Miguel/Rod Stewart mash-up, feels like an overt attempt at a "FourFiveSeconds"-style genre-busting flex, though its transitions are as clunky and unresolved as PowerPoint slide changes. Not to say the album isn’t without hits: lead single "Lord Pretty Flacko Jodye 2 (LBFJ2)" is a monster, with its hulking, siren-heavy production from drill production duo Nez & Rio, and "Electric Body", with old partner in crime Schoolboy Q, seems destined for club tenure this summer. Still, it’s one of this year’s growing list of major rap releases—Thug, Drake, Kendrick—seemingly unconcerned with landing anything on the radio.
Even without the overt grabs for mainstream relevance à la "Fuckin' Problems", A.L.L.A. isn’t short on star power, and Rocky’s coaxed some impressive features from his sprawling guest roster. Lil Wayne steadily gathers momentum on "M’$", barrelling downhill through break-neck plug talk and landing breathlessly at a final fuck-you to Birdman ("I love my YM, ain’t no more CM"). On album highlight "Fine Whine", M.I.A. shakes up a syrupy half-time lurch to spit, "Tell your new bitch she can suck a dick!" with a mouthful of bad blood. On the same song, Future Hendrix (who’s been making it cool to be psychedelic and street for years now) delivers his realest post-Ciara guest verse yet. That "Wavybone" revives UGK over a Juicy J co-production—and that Yasiin Bey shows up at all on the closing track—are curatorial flexes in their own right.
But A.L.L.A.’s most unexpected presence is Joe Fox, a previously unknown songwriter and guitarist who Rocky scooped off the streets of London and fashioned into his protege, and who appears on almost a third of the album. It’s a weird move, on an album full of them. Until now, Rocky’s adhered to a painstakingly calculated idea of "cool." On Long.Live.A$AP, you got the sense his eclectic, of-the-moment features roster were a pointed statement as to how he’d like to be perceived, an itemized breakdown of the context in which he envisioned his own artistry. But A.L.L.A. frequently wanders from overt coolness towards choices that are emphatically off-trend: Danger Mouse, Mark Ronson, Rod Stewart, a sample from a '60s Christmas ditty on "Excuse Me". It’s a welcome change of pace for the former Raf Simons Murderer, as the self-aware tastemaking takes a backseat to hopes, anxieties, tremors of sociopolitical unrest—a beating heart beneath the Rick Owens linens. Instead of a hyper-curated tableau of swag, Rocky’s curatorial eye adopts a more intimate gaze, rendering his collage of disparate inspirations more like a mixtape made for a friend than a sterile exhibition space. This is where his late mentor’s influence shines brightest: Yams’ point of view was so piercing and confident it effortlessly transcended the sum of his influences, proving emphatically that you are more than the shit you like.
The last thing we hear, even after Yams’ ranted outro closes with a triumphant "ASAP, bitch!," is what sounds like an encroaching train, or a shrieking hangover due to hit any minute now, or maybe just reality about to set in. After the party, the afterparty, and the acid-fueled marathon orgy thereafter, the most surreal part of a trip is inevitably the moment you have to rub your eyes and go be a real adult. From the sound of A.L.L.A., Rocky can handle that.
