A$AP ROCKY
Rakim Mayers, better known by his stage name A$AP Rocky, was born on the 3rd of October, 1988 in Harlem, New York. Born in the crime-infested Harlem neighborhood, Rocky found himself getting caught up in the clandestine street activites. He saw his father go to jail at 12 for dealing. The next year, his older brother was murdered near his apartment in Harlem. Rocky spent a good chunk of his childhood camping out in shelters with his single mother. He sold drugs while moving around shelters with his mother and sister and at the age of 15, he was already selling crack in the Bronx. After living for a period with his mother in New York City, he moved to midtown Manhattan. However, a sudden change for the good happened for Flacko as in 2007, he joined the A$AP Mob crew, a Harlem-based collective of rappers, producers, music video directors, fashion designers, and bikers who shared similar interests in music, fashion, style and art. Thanks to the founder of the crew, A$AP Yams, Rocky is known today as a rapper, record producer, director, actor and model under the pseudonym, Lord Flacko. In this issue, we look at A$AP Rocky’s career so far and why he is a force to be reckoned with for today’s culture. We talk about fashion’s favourite rapper about taking it back to the 90s for his collaboration with GUESS Originals. I produced this magazine from all art mediums in the style of one of my favourite artists at the moment, Richie Velazquez or commonly known as ‘DelaDeso’. A$AP Rocky is a popular musician in Pop culture not only because of his music and shenanigans, but also his involvement within the fashion world. Not many people who are a fan of him know about his love for fashion so I aim to express his thoughts in this short magazine piece in the form of DelaDeso’s art I created myself.
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One of the qualities that set Rocky apart from his peers is that he assembled a crew of creative minds long before his major deal. That seemingly minor step increased his brand’s desirability at the bidding table; Sony saw a self-sustained machine with cost-saving possibilities. Rocky assembled the A$AP Mob in 2007. It includes rappers, producers, and video directors. The crew’s three main producers Clams Casino (“Wassup,” “Bass,” “Palace”), ASAP Ty Beats (“Purple Swag,” “Peso”), and SpaceGhostPurpp (“Keep It G”), are largely responsible for cultivating ASAP Rocky’s woozy soundscapes. The acronym “ASAP” is widely adopted by Rocky’s posse. “Everybody in the crew got an ASAP name,”. The moniker stands for a variety of things, including Always Strive and Prosper. Another definition Rocky is “Assassinating Snitches and Police.” Rocky’s favorite definition is Acronym Symbolizing Any Purpose. On January 18th 2015, members of A$AP Mob revealed that A$AP Yams died, however, did not release any information about his death. The cause of death was ruled to be caused by acute mixed drug intoxication. However, A$AP Mob members and affiliates, say Yams died due to his sleep apnea, which caused asphyxiation and pulmonary aspiration.
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M U S I C A short timeline
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ith his father and older brother gone, Rocky turned elsewhere for inspiration: Hip-Hop. He started experimenting with rhymes at 8 but didn’t start rapping seriously until he was around 17. He grew up on a steady diet of UGK, Devin the Dude, the Diplomats, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, among others. A$AP Rocky’s style is smooth and breezy, the culmination of years and years of gorging on southern-fried raps as well as Hip-Hop styles from other areas. Houston, in particular, figures prominently in his sound. On any given song, you’ll catch him referencing ‘purple drank’, incorporating Houston rap lingo, and drawing out his syllables. His debut mixtape, LiveLoveA$AP, carried on a long tradition of New York rappers appropriating styles from other regions. Stylistically, the tape pays homage to Ohio’s Bone Thugs-N-Harmony in one breath and Houston’s chopped and screwed in the next.
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A$AP Rocky’s first release was a six-song EP titled Deep Purple. It presented Rocky as a fun Harlem kid in a slow flow. On Halloween 2011, he expanded his ever-evolving sound palette on his debut mixtape, LiveLoveA$AP. The tape features beats by Clams Casino and Ty Beats, as well as rhymes by ScHoolboy Q and Spaceghost Purrp. LiveLoveA$AP made several year-end lists and earned Rocky a BBC Sound of 2012 nomination. Rocky’s stock rose even higher after Drake publicly praised him and added him to his Club Paradise Tour.
In May 2015, A$AP Rocky followed up his commercial debut with At.Long.Last.A$AP. It was a sprawling masterwork that combines all of Rocky’s best qualities. “I feel like they (Houstonians) should embrace me. I love the culture. I’m keeping it real. I’m from New York and I love that culture. I love it more than this New York shit. So why wouldn’t you fuckin’ fuck with me back?”.
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A$ap Rocky (DUMMY Magazine) - 28th of October, 2011.
“I’m going to be honest with you – I used to be homophobic, but that’s fucked up. I had to look in the mirror and say, “All the designers I’m wearing are gay”. I hear stories about all these industry motherfuckers who are gay, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that shit don’t matter. It’s so immature”.
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“I have many closets”, says A$AP Rocky. How many? “A few…” He cracks a smile that would look shy if it weren’t exposing two diamond-encrusted gold teeth. It’s hardly a secret that Rocky is into fashion. He’s namechecked every major designer in his lyrics, from Balenciaga to Ann Demeulemeester. He’s starred in campaigns for his friend Alexander Wang. He regularly sits front row at New York Fashion Week and collects vintage Issey Miyake, he tells me. Recently, Rocky reached out to GUESS to express his appreciation for the brand’s role in Hip-Hop history and how much it meant to him growing up. Not long after, he was flying out to LA, where the brand let him loose in its archive. The result is Archive: GUESS Originals x A$AP Rocky, a throwback collection of men’s and women’s pieces that look like 1996 but fit like 2016. There are stripped tees stitched with ‘GUE$$ JEANS USA’, cute acid-washed crop tops, and skinny overalls printed with Rocky’s customized version of the brand’s iconic triangle logo. “It’s taking archival designs and adding a new twist”, he says. But it’s also about nostalgia; “I think this is dope because Hip-Hop hasn’t seen these colour ways and patterns since the early 90s”. To introduce the collection – Which will hit racks at stores on January 30th – Rocky and his collaborator artist Kimi Selfridge (AKA Tan Camera), have installed a replica 90s teen bedroom on the Bowery in New York. This weekend, it will open to the public, who will be able to relive their after school golden days with fully operational Super Nintendos, Slimer! Comic books and packets of ‘Pop Rocky$’ candy. What first made you want to get in touch with GUESS? “I was at home watching the film Menace II Society and the opening scene has GUESS in it, and that film is an urban home classic. It was just listening to lyrics like Nas in 1994, on his debut album, Illmatic. ‘When I get dress, it’s nothing less than GUESS’. And seeing Tupac in GUESS T-shirts with stripes on them in all his videos. This is a capsule collection about 90s nostalgia. This is stuff that people don’t know about in this day and age and I felt like it was my duty to put them onto it. Why deprive these kids of that? I would never neglect anybody of culture or information. I feel that’s how you spread love; knowledge. So you give them a different look. Kids don’t always want to look like everybody else. This is fun for the kids and its fun for me. I’m a kid, a big kid. Kimi and I curated this whole thing. Are video games you chose ones played growing up? What were your favourites? Oh man, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Sonic, Tetris, Pac-Man Crash Bandicoot, man you name it. Super Mario? I still play that every day. On the Nintendo Wii U. The racing! Do you want to play with me? Yeah! But I really think I’d win. Nah, trust me. I go hard. The only person that ever beat me was Tyler, the Creator. In addition to working on this collection, you also released an album this year, and you’re touring. In fashion, this has been a big year for talking about heavy workloads – I’m thinking about Raf Simons – how do you balance everything? I remember visiting Raf and him having anxiety about dealing with Raf Simons and Dior. It’s all about maintaining it, and I think that’s why we left. I’m young, so I’m not at that stage yet. But Raf did a lot in his day. He worked at Jil Sander, he did a lot. At the same time, he’s an OG, and he shouldn’t have tow work that hard. Or maybe he just felt like he’d accomplished what he wanted to. I love Sidney (Toledano) and everybody there did; their decision to pick Raf was just genius. Dior’s smart. If you could be the creative director at any fashion house, which would you choose? Oh shit man. That’s not fair. That’s like picking a team. It would definitely be Dior. I love what Kim Jones does. And the new Gucci shit, that Gucci shit! And who do you still want to work with in your music? Andre 3000 and Adele. I wanted Adele before she dropped this latest album. But that’s not happening. There are a lot of people I want to work with still. You rap about fashion, your friends with designers, but overall do you think the fashion world is as welcoming of musicians as musicians are of fashion? I think so. I just hope that the W fashion industry doesn’t become too overpopulated with…false prophets. From music that is.
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CREDITS
Text - Alice Newell-Hanson Photography courtsey GUESS
guess.com
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