There’s a lot of hyperbole thrown about when it comes to releases from mainstream rappers. Maybe it’s the Kendrick effect, but we seemingly have never been so hungry for hip hop records to blow us away.
On album two, A$AP Rocky again displays a shallow outlook, is too repetitive with his flow and is no more technically impressive than he was on his previous records, but ‘At.Long.Last.A$AP’ has been widely praised since its surprise unveiling. One renowned critic even called it “near perfect”.
It’s not. It’s overlong, self-indulgent and often lyrically hollow. But it’s unmistakably Rocky. His first major label effort, ‘Long.Live.A$AP’, was an extraordinarily safe way to announce himself after he’d created such a buzz with his preceding mixtape. Plagued by poor features and lazy pop hooks, it represented a big mesh of nothing.
Luckily, Rocky is more in his element here. The beats don’t fully delve into the cloudy production of his pre-album material, but they are infinitely more appropriate for his sound. The album is slow-burn and even psychedelic in its use of samples and trippy loops, working nicely as a platform for the east coast rapper’s lethargic style.
The mood here is also decidedly sombre, perhaps in tribute to Rocky’s friend and associate A$AP Yams, who recently passed away. Even the singles aren’t the sunniest, with Lord Pretty Flacko Jodye 2 standing out as more gangsta-influenced than his usual output.
Much like his mixtape work with Clams Casino, the strongest material here is guided by collaboration, this time with a relatively unknown British songwriter. Joe Fox’s lo-fi choruses, which feature on a third of the record, are frequent highlights.
Despite having reclaimed a sense of identity with this album, A$AP Rocky is still a way off the defined artist that he could be. His production overcompensates for mediocre rapping and lyrics – gems like “type of hate that make you feel worse than a rape victim” suggest he needs a better editor – and his “pretty boy with money” persona is only charming for so many tracks before it starts to wear. Embracing the haze is probably a good move, but in the “year of Kendrick” it’s plain that he lacks the credentials to successfully make a record so protracted.
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