I'm obligated to and I want to."Īs the car rolls closer to Madiba Harlem, where Red Bull Music Academy is hosting a conversation with the rapper, Rocky says he'd like to "change the world with (his) music" and help people not feel like outsiders. Although he doesn't offer much about the A$AP Mob rap crew founder, he insists he has "to finish it.
He is also focusing on finishing a solo album by his longtime mentor, the late A$AP Yams, who died of an accidental drug overdose in January at age 26. (Although he plays a drug dealer in Dope, "I wanna work my way up, get some roles that don't fit the typical rapper cliché," he says). But for the most part, he's been able to avoid the more scandalous trappings of fame - instead, establishing himself as a something of a fashion icon, co-starring in Sundance hit Dope (in theaters June 19), and eyeing more movies in the future. I'm a regular (guy), man."Ī regular guy whose relationships with rapper Iggy Azalea and model Chanel Iman have generated some tabloid fodder the last few years, as did his arrest for allegedly attacking two photographers in New York in 2012. I don't need the attention of being a celebrity. "You know what I hate hearing? 'He's in a movie, he's handsome, he's (with) this chick.' It's like.all the hype. With this album, "I'm gonna just come back and get people to the music again," Rocky says, leaning in close. The sonic shift is most evident on the stirring Everyday, a bluesier album cut produced by Mark Ronson (megahit Uptown Funk), and featuring vocals from Rod Stewart (via a sample of Python Lee Jackson's In a Broken Dream) and Miguel. In addition to smoking weed and using hallucinatory drugs while making the album, he was musically influenced by older rock/punk acts such as The Castaways, T.Rex and The Stooges. Last., which he recorded last summer and fall, and just finished mixing and mastering this month. It's a mindset that carries over into his spacey, psychedelic, and moody At. Rocky has never concerned himself with radio hits, he says ("I've always been the type to be like, 'Aw, man, why we gotta worry about these singles?"). 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart two years later, fronted by Hot 100-charting singles Wild for the Night featuring Skrillex, and the all-star F-in' Problems with Drake, Kendrick Lamar and 2 Chainz. After all, the Harlem-bred rapper (real name: Rakim Mayers) has been touted as one of hip-hop's most promising young MCs ever since his breakout 2011 mixtape, Live. Still, it's not unreasonable to expect greatness from the 26-year-old's new album, At. Perhaps self-conscious about seeming cocky, he grins and lets out a hearty laugh, changing the subject as he points out a bikini-clad model on a nearby billboard and asks if she's Adriana Lima. Word from somebody else: it's a masterpiece."
"For me, I had to listen to it in a whole piece, as one. "It's just one of those things where you get to dissect it how you want," he says, chatting in the backseat of an SUV as he heads from his SoHo penthouse to Harlem for a Q&A late one afternoon. NEW YORK - There's no right way to listen to A$AP Rocky's new album.
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