Instead, Rocky needed to play to his strengths - his rapping has continued to improve, and he still has the charisma and personality to stand out in the crowd - and spend a little more time writing hooks and fleshing out songs. It’s 2015, and we’re fine with rap that breaks molds and tries new things, but BlakRoc retreads and psych-rock bore-fests are neither. Whatever the case, At.$AP needed a stronger hand at the wheel, someone to reel in Rocky’s try-hard eclecticism. But as FACT’s Andrew Friedman points out, we don’t know how complete the record was when he passed or how much influence replacement producer Danger Mouse had, or even how far Rocky was down his psychedelic rabbit hole by then.

Much has been made of A$AP Yams too-young death in January, and the effect it had on At.$AP. ‘Multiply’ somehow didn’t make the final cut, Twigs and Clams are nowhere to be found, “psychedelic shit” is on the march, and At.$AP is an unfocused, overlong slog of an album.

Name-dropping trip-hop, Thom Yorke, T-Rex and “old ’60s psychedelic shit” was a head-scratcher, but most tried to withhold judgement. Promotional single ‘Multiply’ was nihilistically aggressive collaborations with FKA Twigs, Lykke Li and Clams Casino sounded promising. A$AP, an album that air-dropped two excellent singles and featured both a not-half-bad Skrillex collaboration and a head-pleasing posse cut.Īs we waited for At.$AP, Rocky dribbled out hints about what the album would sound like. A few years later, he expanded his palette and dabbled in singing on Long. When A$AP Rocky first emerged at the beginning of the decade, it was by shrewdly repackaging cloud rap and Houston-Memphis hip-hop for the Fashion Week crowd.

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