A$AP Rocky Transformation as an Important Figure on Modern Hip-Hop Era

As a figure who took a role in modern hip-hop breakthrough in the mainstream music industry. Rocky put himself on a radar because of his music, fashion, and other creative industry influences. Started by putting out his phenomenal music video Purple Swag in 2011, Rocky had released his third studio album called Testing on May 25, 2018. Flacko, a greeting for this Harlem rapper, becomes one of several artists whose latest project is always awaited by hip-hop enthusiasts. Since the high demand for his mixtape Live.Love.A$AP, Rocky experienced a music transformation that is quite unique and surprising for the hip-hop music scene.

1. Deep Purple (2011)

Before Live.Love.A$AP was released, A$AP Rocky has already put out his first mixtape called Deep Purple. It may be surprising for some people because this tape is quite less well known. In this seven songs project, Flacko shows his main selling point which is a unique flow. Instead of becoming a weakness, his explicit lyrics is a plus point for the people who do not really care about lyrical content.

 

The release of the music video for track three, Purple Swag, made the existence of Rocky heard by the crowd. People attracted because of its low and deep pitch vocal effects that Flacko applied to the song. He also released a song titled Been Around The World in two different versions, one of them is presented with the sound that he called as Chopped and Screwed version. The sound effect eventually became his signature sound.

2. Live.Love.A$AP (2011)

After the ‘Purple Swag Effect’, Rocky became one of the rappers whose music is highly anticipated by hip-hop enthusiasts. A few months after Deep Purple, "Live.Love.A$AP" was released and easily stole the music scene attention. It sounded fresh and different from any other hip-hop music at that time.

The average people would say "Dope Flow!" right after hearing this music project. The acceptance of A$AP Rocky in the mainstream arena is, of course, because of his lyrical content that is fairly familiar to people. On the other hand, a contrasting argument was raised by the hip-hop critics and some people. For them, it was just another mixtape that only talks about drugs, liquor, marijuana, and b*tches. Beyond the pro-con, Rocky had managed to break down the mainstream music market at that time with his well-known songs such as Peso, Bass, Wassup, and of course a never-go-wrong-duet with Schoolboy Q in Brand New Guy.

3. Long.Live.A$AP (2012)

About one year since "Live.Love.A$AP", Rocky released her debut studio album under A$AP Records with RCA Records entitled "Long.Live.A$AP". Though people said it has the same ‘color’ as his mixtape, Rocky simultaneously lifted up his name in the mainstream music scene and improved his lyrical content.

Songs like Fashion Killa, Angels, Wild for the Night, and F** ckn Problems that grabbed a Grammy nomination for the best hip-hop song in 2014 made his music lovers mushrooming. On the other hand, Rocky also enclosed two songs, Phoenix and suddenly, with a typical category of lyrical rap that in fact is not the reason why he was famous. Those two songs are not solely addition. Rocky released a music video for Phoenix and always opened his show with Suddenly. From the 16 total songs on this project, 1Train lead a massive discussion among hip-hop critics. They believed 1Train was a medium for new rappers to appear in the music industry. The song involved Kendrick Lamar, Danny Brown, Yelawolf, BIG K.R.I.T, Joey Bada$$, and Action Bronson.

4. At.Long.Last.A$AP (2015)

After two years of waiting, Rocky finally released his second studio album entitled "At.Long.Last.A$AP" in 2015. Rocky recorded A.L.L.A in London and New York. At.Long.Last.A$AP is a testament to Rocky music transformation. This album received a terrific acceptance from the music critics. Rocky delivered more statements on his interests as African American. Indeed, many Rocky fans considered this album as a ‘trash’ compared to previous work. In their opinion, Rocky’s transformation is too much. Rocky also seemed to have predicted this situation, Rocky mentioned a sentence "I guess the new me is just gonna take some getting used to" in the song Excuse Me.

People are buzzing after Rocky released L$D music video a few days before the album was released. Inspired by the movie Enter The Void, Rocky admitted that he wanted to create a trippy atmosphere in the music video which exceptionally represented the musical color of the song very well. In addition, "At.Long.A$AP" also gained great attention because Rocky  'nudged' Rita Ora in the song Better Things explicitly.

Behind the process of recording, this album had a unique story like a featured artist who dominates "At.Long.Last.A$AP", Joe Fox, was a street musician who accidentally met Rocky in the city of London. Rocky also featured unexpected guest artist, Rod Steward, on the song Everyday which became one of the hits on this album.

This album had excellent content in terms of lyrics, flow, delivery, and production that was so remarkable. Some of the songs that considered as a ‘banger ‘in this album are Holy Ghost, Every day, L$D, Excuse Me, M’$, Electric Body, and of course this album anthem Lord Pretty Flacko Jodye II. Though each of every song in this project had their own unique value. Critics argued that A.L.L.A is the best album Rocky ever made (in that day).

5. Testing (2018)

The Harlem rapper latest album entitled "Testing" has just been released in May 2018. After three years of waiting, fans consider the wait to be anti-climactic. Rocky just created another experimental hip-hop album. It sounds nothing like his previous project. “Testing” is a perfect depiction of Rocky as a human being. He might tell you about his lifestyle with his high-end clothing, on the other hand, Rocky is just a human being. He also sensed sadness and broken-hearted.

“Testing” was drowning after its release for some indirect reasons such as Kanye announcement to release four albums that he produced and a ‘beef’ between Drake with Pusha T which flooded the internet.

A$AP Rocky is still A$AP Rocky. Despite the drowning of his album announcement, his music video for the song A$AP Forever which set out to be a promotional song is still exploded. It has been seen by over 30 million viewers (July, 10th). Praise The Lord which featured a London rapper, Skepta, also became a hit and his most played song in the digital music streaming platform. Rocky stated, “Artists are too afraid to experiment a new sound for their music”. We could hear his expression on experimenting with only listening to the production sound. Rocky put so many instruments in a single song that made it sound complex yet gave you an Eargasm. On another song, Rocky might only put a guitar sound and it still sounded so great. Therefore, Testing is directly taken from his expression to experiment a new sound. “Testing” has created a bigger line for the two sides of pro-con.

Rocky’s latest project gave you a clear picture of his future direction. Rocky will never put out the same project concept. It will be really interesting for the hip-hop music scene because Rocky will always present a fresh sound. 









picture sources :
genius(dot)com/albums/A-ap-rocky/Live-love-a-ap
mixtapemonkey(dot)com/295/asap-rocky-deep-purple
flavourmag(dot)co(dot)uk/album-review-aap-rocky-long-live-aap
pitchfork(dot)com/reviews/albums/20661-atlonglastaap/
hiphopcorner(dot)fr/asap-rocky-et-blocboy-jb-sont-en-bad-company/
genius(dot)com/albums/A-ap-rocky/Testing