The Pop Corporation

We don’t necessarily look forward to an album from ASAP Rocky, per se, even if he is capable of occasional cool things.

As part of the ASAP Mob, we always looked forward to Ferg’s macho bullshit, but whether you like it or not, Rocky was the star. ‘Goldie’ and ‘F***ing Problems’ were club hits, and then he bobbed and weaved his way through fashion and knocking up Rihanna, which allowed other rappers to move in on his patch.

The psychedelic mess of some of his early work paved the way from Travis Scott’s frat boy rage rap, and now, the equivalent of ASAP Mob is the likes of Playboi Carti, who is signed to Rocky’s label.

ASAP brought the moshpit to modern hip hop, so with a new album, it’s interesting to see if he’s still got that swagger that made him a rap pin-up in the first place.

There was a lot of chat about an appearance from Morrissey on ‘Don’t Be Dumb’, and mercifully, now the album is in the wild, that doesn’t appear to be a thing. “I might have to fuck with Morrissey on some Smiths shit,” he said a while back, adding that he figured Morrisey’s inclusion would help him make “some emo, real, retro-infusion, motherfuckin’ 2018 shit.”

Maybe he found out about Moz’s political views, or maybe the former Smith found another unique way of falling out with someone. Who knows?

Either way, Rocky’s whole thing is vibe – he’s no razor sharp wordsmith, and indeed, the best line on the whole album comes from Brahim Gousse’s Slay Squad, who on ‘STFU’, spits “they say Haitians eating cats, I make sure my dogs eat,” which is a brilliant zinger.

However, if you’re looking for a focused, smart LP, then this ain’t it – it’s all over the place. With ‘Punk Rocky’, it sounds like we’re being given some kind of indie music version of rap and of course, we’ve had psychedelic indie hip hop before (Lil Yachty) and punk hip hop (Paris Texas), but this is neither here nor there, like when Thugger tried rebranding himself as a rockstar.

It’s not that genres shouldn’t crossover, but there’s always a nagging sense that some rappers think they’ll get some legitimacy from rock music that they can’t get from hip hop – and that does a disservice to how good hip hop is. Maybe it’s us, but on ‘Helicopter’, Rocky’s swag is on full show and it sounds much better than whatever hipster indie Rocky’s been listening to lately.

That said, Rocky didn’t ever make albums like anyone else. He was never a strip club anthem guy, and nor was he too bothered with hot trends despite being a fashionista – this is an eclectic album that goes from Mac DeMarco featuring electronic noodles, to bedroom trap in the blink of an eye. It can’t decide whether to sound expensive as shit, or lo fi and off kilter.

In a scene that follows micro trends and releases music so quickly, it’s almost like memes, you could argue that it’s almost gallant that Rocky decided to do whatever the fuck he wanted on this album.

That said, the energy is up and down, so for every track that ups the tempo, you get something that makes the album flag. ‘Robbery’ features Doechii, which on paper should be pretty fun, but it’s all a bit silly. Same goes for the apparent Drake diss ‘Stole Ya Flow’, which all feels a bit hallow. And what’s with the Danny Elfman and Tim Burton stuff? It’s not even good odd.

Sections of the album are pretty dense, and if you like that kinda thing, you might have a blast with this album – if you don’t, you might find it irritating. All in all, it could do with a bit more focus and for the haters, it won’t win them over – for the fanbois, they’ll probably think it’s amazing.

For the rest of us, we might be left cherry picking some bits like ‘Stop Snitchin” and updating some playlists, but it’s not a game-changer, even if you can appreciate an artist trying something a bit different from the norm.