LiveLoveA$AP

A$AP Rocky’s long anticipated debut mixtape ‘LiveLoveA$AP’ finally dropped last night. Following the outright breathtaking and increasingly unavoidable Peso and Purple Swag – plus some more low key but similarly impressive tracks like the Clams Casino-produced Wassup, this release is the moment for Rocky and his Harlem-based A$AP mob to present a full-length expression of their style and vision to the world. The buzz around the 23-year-old is huge but Rocky embraces and feeds off the hype without falling into the old-as-time trap of believing it; he presents a mix of assured self-confidence and incessant hunger here is a pleasure to hear and suggests even bigger things from him in the near future.

The mixtape opens with Palace, another gorgeously expansive and sweeping Clams Casino-produced track, that could be a manifesto for the whole A$AP Rocky project: the repeated “Got damn/How real is this/I know the whole world gonna be feeling this/East coast nigga/But how trill is this” openly addressing the burden on his shoulders; his confidence in his abilities and the superimposition of a definite Harlemite shine and authenticity with a distinct H-Town lean. His rhymes are more about cadence than technical virtuosity and the development of his flow seems to have settled at a mono-syllabic stuttering style combined with a dragging drawl at the end of his bars. A$AP Rocky can rhyme but, like UGK’s Pimp C, understands melody and even the alphabet word-play in Peso is as much about a gathering of momentum and playfulness as showing how clever he can be with words.