Music

A Thing Or Two About A$AP Rocky’s Long.Live.A$AP Album

Today Long.Live.A$AP, the debut album from A$AP Rocky, is in stores nationwide. There is a very, very, very good chance you have already heard it, because that’s just the way things work these days. Even if you haven’t, the album’s release represents something very important for Hip-Hop as a genre, New York as a hub of that genre, the role of the Internet in breaking artists, and why certain rappers even get talked about at all. A$AP Rocky made an album that manages to essentially say nothing, while doing all of the things that a good rap debut does—namely, remain singular while producing singles that align with what could realistically get play on the radio, as well as feature enough high-profile guest rappers and producers as to imply a sense of inclusion into the fold.

There are several lenses through which we can view A$AP Rocky and Long.Live.A$AP that can help us understand the nature of mainstream rap, Internet buzz, and our own souls. Well, not the last one, unless you happen to be reading this and are yourself A$AP Rocky.

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THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE, BUT NOT IN THE WAY THAT YOU’RE THINKING

The main critique of A$AP Rocky as a rapper is that he’s not really a lyricist when stacked up against his contemporaries—he lacks Kendrick Lamar’s acumen for narrative, or Danny Brown’s ability to sell a punchline, or Gunplay’s innate sense of both the intense and absurd. What Rocky has over all of those guys, though, is that he’s smooth. He understands how to use his voice as if it were another instrument, writing to the beat rather than simply existing in conjunction with it, which is in every single way as valuable a skill as writing lyrics that stick to the listener’s ribs.

The phrase “The medium is the message” is an often-used one, frequently in ways that its creator Marshall McLuhan probably didn’t intend for it to be. If you apply this phrase to A$AP Rocky, well, he became popular largely in part because of the Internet, so that must mean he’s an Internet rapper, right? Nah, A$AP Rocky’s just a rapper who used the modern ways of becoming popular to his advantage. The actual “medium” at play here is Rocky himself.

It’s no coincidence that A$AP Yams—the Puffy to Rocky’s Biggie, if you will—used to be the proprietor of the now-defunct blog REALNIGGATUMBLR, which was essentially a collection of really cool hip-hop imagery as well as a bunch of old A$AP Rocky songs. In many ways, A$AP Rocky is a human Tumblr, effectively reblogging what’s cool from both the past and present, from his Geto Boys-indebted flow on the bonus cut “Jodye” to the left-field choice to get Friendzone to do the beat for “Fashion Killa,” down to how he says the word, “Right” on “Angels” with nearly the exact same inflection as Puff used to employ. It’s hard to emphasize the influence of the Diplomats on Rocky and the rest of A$AP’s style and aesthetics—the bike shots from the “Peso” video are lifted from this video, and stylistically Rocky started out as a hybrid of Max B and oh, I don’t know, Bone Thugz. I don’t point out where Rocky’s cribbing from to discount his artistry—curation is a meaningful aesthetic act and often just as valid and entertaining as innovation. Besides, do you really want to do the cool thing first, or do the cool thing better than everyone else who’s doing it?

POPULARITY ON THE INTERNET DOES NOT MEAN YOU’VE MADE IT, BUT NOWADAYS IT CAN PAY YOUR BILLS UNTIL YOU ACTUALLY MAKE IT

Blogs don’t make artists. Never have, never will. As someone who’s part of the quality-control process for what Noisey posts, I can’t tell you how many emails I get from artists who (A) expect their music to be posted on our site simply by virtue of it existing, and (B) assume that by being featured on any website, including this one, that they’ve reached a modicum of popularity and the dominoes should start falling in a path that takes them straight to the bank.

A$AP Rocky, or someone on his team at least, understands this. While blogs might have helped propel them to the notoriety that helped him earn his deal, there were no cultural gatekeepers that anointed him. Instead, he became popular enough that people who ran music sites heard about him—either organically or through some label Illuminati who’d been watching him—and felt the demand for music like Rocky’s either existed or was about to exist. And regardless, if I had to guess Rocky’s music was shared more through Facebook and Twitter than by music sites—the way this stuff works is one kid sees a cool song on a blog and then shares it with their friends who don’t read blogs, and a couple million views later, dude had a deal.

The fairly obvious counter-argument to the “The Internet Doesn’t Make Stars” argument is Trinidad James, who went from some random dude with a tape on LiveMixtapes to Def Jam’s newest signee with whiplash-inducing speed. This is in my opinion an after-effect of A$AP Rocky’s popularity, an attempt on record executives’ part not to miss the Next Big Thing because they weren’t on YouTube enough, and the fever pitch drove James’ value up artificially.

Regardless of where his popularity stems form or why, it began on the Internet, so “Internet Famous” he is for the time being. And despite being album-less, Rocky managed to spend large swaths of 2012 touring venues that also routinely hosted performances by rappers such as 2 Chainz and Rick Ross. Similarly, popularity online allowed Rocky to generate buzz and use that buzz make enough money off of touring to support himself and his circle. On the other hand…

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS DEFINITELY STILL A THING

The Internet is powerful because it allows us to fall into the trap of thinking that an artist emerged sui generis, when really that’s just a big steaming pile of bullshit. The rise of Rocky appears similarly tied to the Internet, but this too is deceptive. Rocky tends to get pegged with the term “Internet Rapper” or “Tumblr-Wave” or some other nonsense, nothing more than a gussied-up viral sensation. The narrative of Rocky is that he was born in Harlem but took his first steps on YouTube, riding the popularity of the one-two punch that were the “Purple Swag” and “Peso” videos all the way to a ridiculous record deal with RCA, which seemingly led to LIVELOVEA$AP, Rocky’s first full mixtape. This is patently false—the external evidence of Rocky’s rise should not be confused with the internal processes that led to his rise in and of itself. A$AP Yams knows his shit as a kingmaker to the nth degree—he used to intern for Jim Jones at Asylum Records. Meanwhile, A$AP Ferg’s father designed the logo for Bad Boy Records. While an education in the record industry and a couple connections does not a rap star make, those are both tangible, offline connections to the music industry of yore that undoubtedly allowed Rocky to rise up amongst the ranks of hot rappers with such speed.

And besides, this is only the first step for Rocky. Long.Live.A$AP as a record indicates an aspiration to join that mainstream rap roundtable in the same ubiquitous way that guys like 2 Chainz and Future recently have. No amount of reblogs on their own can earn a spot on rap radio, and Rocky knows it. This spring, he’s going to be asked to prove himself to an entirely new audience as the opener on Rihanna’s Diamonds tour. Rocky will no longer be amongst his contemporaries preaching to the already-initiated, as he did on his most recent tour with Schoolboy Q and Danny Brown. There’s no guarantee Rihanna’s audience will know Rocky beyond his current hit “Fuckin’ Problems,” which amongst a sea of amazing verses from Drake and Kendrick Lamar barely even belongs to Rocky.

THE RADIO STILL MATTERS

Even if the radio is short of bullshit and less people listen to it than ever before, it’s still extremely important that a rapper have hits on mainstream rap radio, as it’s a tangible measure of an artist’s popularity and still a fairly good predictor of whether or not an artist will have the name recognition to move albums to people who aren’t already fans. If you notice, the first single from Long.Live.A$AP was “Goldie,” and while it may truly be Rocky’s finest effort lyrically, was built on an astoundingly good beat from Hit-Boy and featured a globe-trotting video stuffed with opulent menace, failed to make any sort of meaningful impact upon hip-hop radio (recall something similar with J. Cole, whose single “Who Dat” was a blip on rap radio and finally got a release date once he dropped “Work Out” and finally made a dent in people’s consciousness). So far, the biggest radio move that Rocky’s made is the aforementioned “Fuckin’ Problems,” the 2 Chainz-provided hook to which has served as fodder for a wave of jokes on Twitter and Tumblr, most of which are fairly dreadful. However, the real joke to be had here is that A$AP Rocky sounds like a guest on his own song, and that’s a fucking problem.

The thing about the album that’s somewhat alarming to me from a radio-leaning standpoint is that there isn’t another clear third single to be had here. The album’s title track was released with a video on YouTube, but I doubt the record will find the same reception that “Fuckin’ Problems” did. Now that the album’s out, Rocky and his team are going to need another hit to sustain the model they’ve bought into, but it’s unlikely that LongLiveA$AP will provide it. Looks like what they’re going to try to throw on the radio next will be “Wild For The Night,” a trappy rework of a Skrillex remix to Birdy Nam Nam’s “Goin’ In.” While the track is due all the credit in the world for ushering the phrase, “Me and my nigga Skrillex” into the world, it’s still an unconventional song, one that’s playing towards Rocky’s ability to be surfing the cutting edge of culture—namely, the recent mish-mashing of EDM and hip-hop as also evidenced by Just Blaze touring with Bauuer, Danny Brown tapping Rustie for beats on his upcoming album and this video of Future freestyling over TNGHT. It’s a fine song and a decidedly forward-thinking one, but it remains to be seen whether the radio will agree. But Rocky will be totally okay if his album fails to produce another hit single, and this is because…

ALBUMS DON’T REALLY MATTER ANYMORE, AND IF THEY DO THEY MATTER FOR DIFFERENT REASONS

Unless you’re a rapper on the scale of Nicki Minaj or Lil Wayne, it’s unreasonable to expect to make a bunch of money off of your album alone. Not being able to live off of album sales has been a problem for musicians for years, and now that less people buy albums than ever, sales expectations have deflated to the point where if an artist sells something in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand albums, the record is deemed a success. I wouldn’t say that hip-hop as a genre has regressed back to a singles-driven mentality,[i] but the album has shifted roles and could be looked at as the end of a rapper’s commercial cycle rather than the beginning of it, and the focus has shifted onto mixtapes first.

In a way, it’s a case of Art Vs. Commerce. Because the cost of a mixtape to a rap fan is nothing more than a click, a rapper isn’t really using a mixtape to sell a product other than themselves. This tends to lead to rappers making more cohesive works that offer a glimpse into their individual style, rather than trying to score hit singles that serve as advertisements for their albums. Of course, many mixtape hits do end up being radio hits. Meek Mill’s “Amen” featuring Drake and Jeremih is a great example of a mixtape yielding a hit, and Meek Mill’s subsequent commercial offering Dreams And Nightmares is also an example of a good rapper making a crummy album in hopes of chasing trends and satisfying regional markets and generally playing against his strengths.

Rocky’s LIVELOVEA$AP tape served as a cohesive, coherent mission statement, letting you know exactly who you were getting and what you were getting from him. Unfortunately, Long.Live.A$AP often sounds like a more-expensive version of LIVELOVEA$AP but with the Drake, 2 Chainz and Skrillex thrown in there. If I had to guess, Long.Live.A$AP will ultimately be looked to as a success, even if because Rocky managed to make something that asserts itself within the context of the mainstream hip-hop not be fully assimilated by it. It remains to be seen, however, if it will be looked to as a success by not tanking.

Even his album does happen to go wood, it’s not really that big a deal because he can just release it again. Future proved this by choosing to follow up his debut album Pluto with Pluto 3D, the same tracks jumbled-up with three new songs and a couple remixes. On a cursory glance, the album seems to be underperforming (sales are below regular Pluto numbers, at least). However, this is still a savvy business move because Pluto 3D probably cost a fraction of the cost to record and release that Pluto did, and he managed to get his Kelly Rowland-featuring remix to “Neva End” a bit of radio play and helped propel him through another cycle of touring without actually having to release too much music. Even if Rocky fails to lodge another radio hit, he can just call a do-over on Long.Live.A$AP and rerelease it as Longest.Live.A$AP or whatever and hope Drake shows up for a second rodeo.

SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN, EXACTLY?

Mainstream rap still matters. It’s the one genre of music where high-selling artists are still taken seriously by both critics and fans alike, where drawing power is considered a mark of artistry and has beome, in many ways, the outlet of pissed-off youth culture. At the same time, mainstream rap as a term is as fluid as it’s ever been. Artists can be bizarre and brazenly experimental and still find space on rap radio, while the machine borne on backs of endless affiliations that in the past created stars is faulty—find me one Gudda Gudda or Jae Millz superfan and we’ll talk.[ii]

Depending upon your criteria, rappers as stylistically dissimilar and plain unconventional as Macklemore and Lil B could be considered “mainstream,” but it is Rocky who blazed a new trail to earn himself a seat at the old table, but in the process he reflected a transformative period within the very shape and scope of the table itself. Sitting there is still important, yes, but the routes to it are more varied and less guaranteed than ever before, and the table itself is amorphous, with strange angles and an amoeba-like ability to change shape for no reason. It’s a weird fucking table, and at this point I don’t know what else to tell you. Perhaps Rocky will rap about it some day.


[i] Though there certainly are singles-first rappers such as Pitbull and Flo Rida who make mercenarily competent, fun-ish pop hits while performing abysmally when it comes to actual album sales. It’s not that these rappers are in some way intrinsically bad, it’s just that they and the teams around them are more overtly cynical (or pragmatic) than others.

[ii] Still, there are exceptions that prove being affiliated with a star is as rewarding as it’s ever been. If you’d told me that Tity Boi was slowly going to morph into 2 Chainz nearly a decade after he first popped up twice on Ludacris’s Chicken-N-Beer, or that Rico Wade’s cousin was going to change the way people thought about AutoTune and Molly, I’d have politely told you to shut the fuck up.

One time someone called Drew Millard “Drew Chainz” as a joke and he’s struggled to escape the nickname ever since. He’s on Twitter – @drewmillard