Send "ASAP Rocky " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 With the release of LiveLoveA$AP, the positive influence of the internet on the next generation of hip-hop has finally taken form in a way much more accessible than with Lil’ B. So, allow me a bit of token regional exploration before we get to the actual meat of what makes this mixtape so enjoyable. ASAP Rocky is, already famously, a descendant of Harlem and all that entails (Dipset!). His main producer to this point, Clams Casino, hails from the college life of northern New Jersey. Clams’ major claims to fame have come via production work for the aforementioned Lil’ B and fellow Californians Main Attrakionz. And yet this album opens with a track, “Palace”, whose most captivating moment finds Rocky rapping like a forgotten member of Three 6 Mafia’s horrorcore era (I vote Koopsta Knicca), and quickly makes inroads on a soundscape that sounds way more Swishahouse circa-1995 than New York, or Jersey, or California circa-anytime. Well, besides the ethereal “Wassup” that brings to mind previous Clams Casino masterstrokes like Lil’ B’s “I’m God”.The point is, if you care at all about drawing lines in the sand with your hip-hop, LiveLoveA$AP offers a lot of contradiction to your hypothesis. Because in a world where certified technician-style MCs like Jadakiss and Fabolous have spent the past four-ish years trying to bring New York to the sounds of Atlanta, ASAP, Clams and the rest of the people involved with this realized bringing anything anywhere doesn’t matter. What’s important is that your music feels natural and your persona free of shoehorning. What’s absolutely crucial is that you aren’t chasing anything, particularly as a rap artist. Granted, it’s easier to fake your way to authenticity in hip-hop these days - just ask Rick Ross. But then ask yourselves whether you’d find Ross so easy to deny if the truth didn’t deny him for you, or if he’s actually quite believable as a decadent Freeway-Ross-that-wasn’t-caught behind the veil of Oz. If you come to the conclusion that fantasy is oftentimes more desirable in music than reality, you’re ready to focus on what makes ASAP Rocky such a great addition to the scene: his music is awesome. “Purple Swag” was inescapable in its previous form as a two-minute YouTube video, but with added features from fellow Three 6 fanatics SpaceghostPurrp (from Florida of all places, if you’re still trying to connect dots) and ASAP Nast, it becomes even more of an anthem for lazy summer Sundays than previously. Elsewhere, “Houston Old Head” is a slow rolling ode to the more earthy knowledge bases of past-generation Southern black males. “Leaf” flirts with the upper echelon of 2011’s odes to dope smokin’, while “Get Lit” and “Roll One Up” act as perfect smoking buddies and, well, “Bass” lives up to its given name. For some, a lack of so-called substance could work against LiveLoveA$AP. Rocky’s definitely a young kid talking about the things that please him and little else, which could effectively turn away listeners that hope their hip-hop can take a little timeout from enjoying life every so often to complain about some stuff. But it’s this writer’s opinion that “realness” doesn’t deserve to be confined to ghetto street corners and hyperreal town hall meetings. Sometimes, it can be as simple as sitting in a freshly waxed car, windows dropped, speakers on blast, the world, by all accounts, your oyster. That’s how Rocky and his fellow ASAPs (Always Strive and Prosperers) sees it on “Trilla”, and how LiveLoveA$AP allows us to look at the world....full text |
| Polaroidsofandroids |
| Coming off the back of his weirdly intriguing Deep Purple EP, ASAP Rocky has built up a mountain-load of hype from only a handful of songs, but he still remains relatively untested. The Harlem rapper then added some serious financial muscle behind him and his ASAP crew — 3 million bones worth of card-counting, back-patting, major-label suits, to be exact. And the hype only intensified. Now with the release of his first mixtape LiveLongA$AP, Rocky flips all his cards face up on the table. The dominate rap blueprint has always been something along the lines of: create a persona, rep your city and if you sell/sold drugs; it's a bonus. And Rocky takes all this — except he doesn't sell drugs anymore (it's corny), and jams it deep into your eardrums. His refrain: "I be that pretty motherfucker / Harlem's what I'm repping," is omnipresent on every song, but with his swagged-out cool he manages to get away with it. His persona is above all, an interesting one, on Leaf he drawls: "hipster by heart, but I can tell you how the streets feel." And this is pretty much what his point-of-view boils down to. He's sold drugs in Harlem, but he was wearing Raf Simons when he did it. And it is believable. All the gold grills, purp drank, and weed smoke are part of his life, and he showcases the shit out of it — using it to draw you into his world. On LiveloveA$AP Rocky plays to his strengths, he's doesn't have the lyrical prowess of a Kendrick Lamar, or the vocal dexterity of a Drake. But he's got a smooth, agile flow. He knows when to draw out syllables to lift a verse and can switch up to a passable double time flow when needed. But the real driving force behind the mixtape is the slew of underground-ish producers. Burn One, Beautiful Lou, A$AP Ty Beats and SpaceGhost Purrp all add Houston-influenced, ambient, acid-tipping beats that give the mixtape a coherence that breeds solid re-playability. However, it is a white dude from New Jersey who goes by the ridiculous/awesome name of Clams Casino that is Rocky's ace-in-the-hole. Clams has been constructing smoked-out, hypnotic soundscapes for the likes of Lil B and Soulja Boi, but when Rocky brings him into the fold, the chemistry is mad-scientist. Backed by Clams' trademark haunting strings and muted drums, Rocky sounds his most comfortable, weaving his smooth flow comfortably in and out of the beats, never forcing. While the mixtape does have an appealing consistency — both in content and sound — it can drag in places. You hear his trademark "pretty motherfucker" in every song, and his content runs the same paths of getting high, getting shroomed, getting dranked, getting paid and getting bitches. When he puts a fresh spin on it, like on the triumphant Palace: "Write it on my tombstone: I was stoned nigga," it works. But the tape suffers at the hands of a few too many dumb, lazy lines, like on Roll One Up: "Puff puff pass take a drag just don't steam it tho / Smokin on that captain kush this shit is unbelievable." If there are any clouds hanging over Rocky's head, the predominant one is that he's all style, no substance. But that's missing the point. The actual rapping isn't the focus here; it's the experience, the ride. It's all a journey into his world and the destination doesn't really matter. Rocky doesn't rap from the top of forty-foot stages, he's rapping on your level, albeit from some twisted parallel universe, and he reaches out and invites you in. A world where everything is purple; the clouds are purple weed smoke, and purple drank spills freely from the taps, and the girls' golden hair match their gold grills, and Rocky is your stoner-prince. "I'm a down-to-earth nigga, we can kick it," he drones on the end of Leaf, "take a hit with me."...full text |
| Sputnikmusic |
| ASAP Rocky’s meteoric rise in the past few months is certainly one of the most out-of-nowhere success stories of 2011. Known for little more than guest spots on mixtapes by left-field artists such as Main Attrakionz, ASAP began to garner significant attention for his songs “Peso” and “Purple Swag,” the latter becoming a certifiable Internet smash. Since then, the songs have received regional radio play (ASAP’s from Harlem), and ASAP later found himself on tour with Drake and signing an unbelievable $3 million deal with RCA. That’s simply a staggering amount of money, clearly enough, especially considering the sorry state of the music industry, coupled with how far LiveLoveA$AP is from sounding remotely like dance-friendly mainstream hip-hop. All of LiveLoveA$AP is mid-paced, the beats (courtesy of up-and-comers Clams Casino and Spaceghost Purrp, amongst others) are dreamy and hazy, neatly falling in with the “cloud-rap” aesthetic established by artists like G-Side and Main Attrakionz. Honestly, the production choices are easily LiveLoveA$AP’s strongest feature: every beat, from the sad, Burial/Swarms-esque “Demons” to the swagged-out, chopped-and-screwed funk of “Trilla,” is uniformly excellent. Producer Clams Casino particularly shines: his beats for “Palace,” “Bass,” and “Wassup” are simply gorgeous, splicing downbeat vocal samples over hypnotizing, ambient synths and typical hip-hop drum tracks. The result are dreamy beats that amplify ASAP’s effortless flow, but also stand out in their own right. The relative sameness of the production gives LiveLoveA$AP a uniform aesthetic, but one also gets the feeling that ASAP’s also simply more predisposed to rapping over thudding, mid-tempo beats than anything else. His flow is tempered but never lazy, simply sounding natural and effortless and likeable. The popular comparison to Odd Future rapper Hodgy Beats is appropriate, if Hodgy smoked a lot more weed and didn’t get bogged down by tired shock-rap tropes. ASAP’s lyrics are never more than serviceable--he doesn’t really deviate from typical subjects like having sex and getting high--but they never need to be: ASAP’s shortcomings as a lyricist are tempered by his excellent beat selection and his laid-back, personable flow. Ultimately, that’s where LiveLoveA$AP’s success as an album truly lies. The dreamy beats, the haggard production, the confident and chilled braggadocio--it all combines to create a very particular aesthetic, perfect for late night drives or dank smoke sessions, and the album doesn’t have any higher ambitions than perfectly fitting these particular situations. There’s just simply a purpose to the whole of LiveLoveA$AP, and that kind of focus is something to be celebrated....full text |
ASAP Rocky lyrics
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