Deen is too clean to be a fashion killa
Oh shit! ASAP Rocky back – and he’s in a foul mood. As a member of the peanut gallery put it, “King Hypebeast is here to get hypebeasts outta the paint for the 99 and 2 thou!” Its been a minute since we heard anything substantial from Rocky given that he dropped his album and immediately comported himself like the A-list rapper that he probably is at this point, i.e., he got scarce – you know you’re an A-list rapper with a viable fan base when you can afford to leave the scene for a bit.
Forgive me, since I’m old and I wear well-tailored suits most of the time, but it seems as if the named targets on this track are streetwear brands that he used to be affiliated with back in the day. Again, I’m old and I dress well so I could give a fuck about any of that. It’s hilarious listening to a nigga hollering about being a fashion trendsetter and sounding angry about it. Kinda reminds me of that time Wiz Khalifa bragged about being the first muthafucka to smoke some strain of weed or something silly like that. Or whatever. Wiz ain’t said or rapped anything as memorable as his soon to be ex-wife’s nudes in ages. That said, it’s nice to hear some aggro material regardless of who the target is. That’s how bloodthirsty this listener is.
As always, ASAP Yams is front and center and I’m all on board with the lightskin, dirty braided Puffy. That man has fantastic instincts and he seems to have learned from a bunch of smart people. He knows that you always come back with the hard/street single, then you follow up with the radio/pop/shit for the bitches or whatever. Mr. Duckworth Lamar and TDE should take note. This is how it’s done. It also helps if the song is dope and I fucked with this one hard on the first listen.
At this point, we all kinda know what to expect from Rocky and it’s all on display here: screwed and chopped vocals, murky atmospherics, throwback visuals, borrowed lyrics and influences more obvious than the fact that Jay Cutler is a trash QB (fuck the Bears) (*editor’s note: fuck you, Deen). The only addition on deck this time is a strong cosign in the form of a subtle contribution to the track from the gawd, Juicy J. The kind of gravitas lending addition to a song that I really appreciate. Monologues like the one on this song or a series of adlibs scattered throughout the song are often more powerful than yet another tossed off verse. I’d cite examples, but you can do your own fucking homework – start with Puff, Snoop and Jeezy. I imagine that Juicy J’s cosign probably encouraged ASAP LLC to throw in all the Pimp C shouts and the faux Crunchy Black interlude that breaks up the video. Totally derivative but totally awesome.
So I guess this means we should be on the lookout for new music from ASAP Rocky. In case you can’t tell already, I’m here for that shit. I’m just hoping that he does more heavy lifting on this upcoming project than he did on the last one. No A-list rapper alternates between being potentially interesting and being a bland stylist more than Rocky. He really pump faked the masses on that last album. ‘Goldie’ dropped and muthafuckas were fiending, then the album dropped during tax write-off season and the only things I remember about it are Drake, 2Chainz, a pair of Kendrick cameos, Big KRIT slaughtering ‘1 Train’ and dubstep. No bueno, Flacko. You can do better; we all heard the mixtape.
And I must say, ‘Multiply’ is a fantastic start. Oh and while you’re at it, word on tweets is that ASAP and Raider Klan patched things up. Good. Throw copious amounts of SpaceGhostPurrp beats on this new shit. Trust me, I’m a well-dressed listener…
