

It seems like it should be impossible to rap over, but Rocky’s sweat-free double-dutch is an easy fit. For example, A$AP Rocky's team-up with Skrillex, "Wild for the Night", bombs your cortex with screaming lasers, stadium-sized reverb, and a reggae-derived organ lope, and the beat feels like being on the receiving end of a perfectly executed Tekken chain combo.

For someone often criticized for his lack of depth, A$AP Rocky keeps delivering in the face of skepticism.Įven the most dubious ideas succeed on LongLiveA$AP. More importantly, the French-braid gold-teeth kid named after Rakim never cedes the center.

Plenty of rap-industry heavies appear on LongLiveA$AP, and they mix well with Rocky's younger comrades. A third of the record remains close in style to LiveLoveA$AP while most of the collaborations follow in the steps of last spring's "Goldie", which stamped producer Hit-Boy's signature Mini-Boss Musik with a screwed-up hook and gumball-spitting flow that marked it as unmistakably Rocky's. Like that mixtape, the album is a triumph of craft and curation, preserving Rocky's immaculate taste while smartly upgrading his sound. But LongLiveA$AP delivers on and even exceeds the promise of LiveLoveA$AP.
