By: case_
I had started getting into ASAP Rocky through his 2019 single, Babushka Boi. It was a spooky rap hit with a Three 6 Mafia type beat, an excellent use of bass boosting and slasher scream sound effects. The rest of the singles after that have some of the best production Rocky has done, although very different from the dreamy psychedelic beats from the early 2010s. Songs like Sh*ttin’ me, Tailor Swif, and Trunks are some of my absolute favorites from Rocky. HIGHJACK showed a fabulous attempt at experimentation with features as he brought Jessica Pratt, a freak folk singer, into the second half of the song to specifically make me cry. Like many other Rocky fans, we were all expecting for another one of his albums to drop because it seemed like these singles were building up to something. However, ASAP Rocky had an impactful life after 2018’s TESTING. With his career revolving around his various leaks and felony assault trials, to his relationship with Rihanna and their children, even as he hasn’t released a new massive project, his career has been expanding into new fields, leading to wider audiences. So now the album has dropped, in the first days of 2026, with none of the singles on there, and it’s pretty good. Nothing mind-blowing but a lot of bangers here and there.
There is a very evident theme in his album of living a life of richness and fame, pursuing his narcissistic attitude onto everyone, while also trying to take care of his family and love life with a lot of controversy under his belt. An interesting take on growing up where he’s flipping the middle finger to everyone who sh*itted on him, whether it’s leaks or disses and focusing more on his own values of taking care of oneself and his family. Again his experimentation comes into very noticeable moments, like using Danny Elfman to produce a gruffly dramatic outro to the semi-Drake diss “STEAL YO FLOW” or making lounge piano music with a killer Duke Ellington sample for him and Doechii to rap on and then subsequently rob the lounge set while talking about how compatible the two are with each other in “ROBBERY”. Actually, the album is split into two types of production with the first half being hardcore bass boosted beats with high-energy synths and the second half reverting to more psychedelic and dreamy production. “ORDER OF PROTECTION” starts off the set with a blinging synth riff that sounds like a nokia ringtone. Then as the beat goes on, it gets more cinematic as marching drums and thunder gets added to the mix as well as big ad-libs get echoed throughout the mix. like slowly entering through a villain’s lair in a Batman movie. “HELICOPTER” is where Rocky and his team go do crimes and wreck evil chaos onto New York City as the beat goes off hard. A party mosher of a song borrowing from a southern rap style acquitted with Petey Pablo, this is a hard-hitting beat with an insane music video added to it all revolving around swinging your shirt around, committing devious acts of crime and pissing off everybody. I love the menacing synth drone added in the last few seconds of the song with the chorus ringing like the bullhorn he also performs with in the music video and in several other performances. I also think this is where Rocky shows his truest strength is his flow switching, with different verses becoming faster paced in a second and then stopping to emphasize “goody GRIM”.
I like the small switch-up in his next song, “STEAL YA FLOW” where he stops for a second every time he says “black,” making the word the prime focus in his verse and complementing his all-black aesthetic. In every one of his songs, he switches the tempo many times in the first verse as frequently as he can. It’s like he finds every passage he can take on a beat and tries them all. Going back to “STEAL YA FLOW”, the production also kicks ass and should as it hints at Drake and several others about stealing his flows, but then moving far above them with always creating new aesthetics. He adlibs shouting “ready-made” meaning that he already got his life together while Drake, (or whatever the supposed opponent could be) hasn’t. The beat is growling and ferocious, the drums are loud and abrasive, and Rocky brings a force of undenying swagger onto the track. I also like the three-note blink-blink-blink synth laced within the song. It adds a very nice layered rhythm. I also feel like the outro to the song is a really great ending to a flex, especially with the repeating choir vocals. It really adds so much to his antagonistic nature. ”STAY HERE 4 LIFE” is a nicely-executed R&B song with great violin plucking and Brent Faiyaz providing nice vocals into the chorus and bridge. It uses its southern rap interpolations perfectly with a very smooth and dreamy chopped and screwed beat transition that sounds like something straight from Chris Travis’ Pizza & Codeine. The rapping is so shadowily compressed that I thought it was a Three 6 Mafia sample. “PLAYA” is another R&B like song with lesser use of his feature Thundercat, only repeating the intro in the background. Despite this, it is a very funky trap song with Rocky’s charisma and charm at a maximum.
Listening through it, it makes sense that Tim Burton would collaborate with Rocky as they are both purveyors of goth styles as Rocky has with his street goth fashion. They are both known to experiment with dark themes in their art but they can have their moments where their experimentation doesn’t go far enough. Even though there is clear creativity and experimentation added all throughout the album, I feel like there should be songs with more ideas layered into them. I feel like the beat works best when a song becomes more layered and more thought out as the song progresses. “STOP SNITCHING” is a great example of this and it provides a simple beat and then it adds a little switch up with the synths when the verse is ending and Sauce Walka holding a different but insane energy to the layout of the song. The beat adds different ways to provide the melody while sticking to the flows of the two rappers. This is in contrast to the song “NO TRESPASSING” where it feels repetitive and like there’s something missing. The song even ends without a finish. “STFU” has a really cool beat that reminds me of stuff from Ho99o9 or Paris, Texas, but Rocky’s vocal energy in the chorus does not fit in at all and the features do a much better job, but it’s so disorganized that it doesn’t feel that succinct of an experimental song. I feel like for the first half of the song, there were a lot of jumbled ideas and they forgot to compress everything together. When it gets to the 2 minute mark though, is where things get really heated up as it has a great buildup and drop where everyone is screaming” shut the f*ck up” at you. But that’s only for a couple of seconds and I wish the rest of that song satisfied that articulation. “PUNK ROCKY” also fits in with the experimentation of new styles and not going far enough. It’s not really a punk song like the title says but more of an alternative rock song similar to Kevin Abstract or Dominic Fike. It feels very basic and nothing hits hard. If there was much harder production it would be better and Rocky’s singing is not unique enough to lift the song much higher. Things really amped up though in “AIR FORCE (BLACK DEMARCO) as the production switches from extremely fast-paced gameboy chiptune beat to psychedelic dream pop beat, combining two of his biggest strengths into one song, his rebellious attitude and living in the fast lane and his love for a simple life and chilling out in ecstasy with his friends and family. It creates a beautiful yin and yang, especially with the soulful background vocals sung by Spencer Sutherland that helps Rocky express his love for a quiet life. An excellent use of experimentation after so many misses with it.
Another affirmation he shouts from the heavens throughout the album is that he loves his wife. Mixed in with his pride of flexing his various cars, fashions, and guns is his desire and romance for connection with his true love. In all of his songs, he is very direct in saying he’s content in life and people complaining about it can go suck it. There are rants in some of the songs with dark keyboard music where he calls out his fans for being too addicted to Rocky that they want him to go back to the old him. He explains the situation in “STAY HERE 4 LIFE”:
“So some of you n**** around here that’s quote-on-quote look up to me seem to feel that you’re disappointed cause I’m taking this latest relationship step I’ve taken.”
Despite the surreal and dark aura he brings to the production, he wants to focus on being a husband and father to his family. Even one of his characters, Mr. Meyers, the one wearing the blue suit, is representative of his fashion choices that closely relates to being a father. In “WHISKEY (RELEASE ME),” he shows an interesting demonstration of his maturity as he now replaces LSD with Whiskey while also making joyful love with his wife. The beat is misty and mysterious but jamming at the same time and Damon Albarn does a great job providing background vocals that sounds like a ghost is haunting Rocky. It’s probably a sign of addiction to his past life or the past relationships he had that gave him joy but also lots of hardships along the way. Westside Gunn also does a good job in the end adding his signature gun adlibs to the eerie beat, also a sign that his fun aggressive side is still there. Still, I wish Gunn was in the production more but I think the song still clears its point well. While he still shows real care and passion, there’s still a darkness he carries with him. Themes of criminal love are heavily laid out in the Lounge jazz act “ROBBERY” that I mentioned earlier about Rocky and Doechii as a charming duo. “DONT BE DUMB/TRIP BABY” is definite proof of true love and that he is focusing on his wife and family. For the first half, this is a very beautiful and trippy mellow song about sacrificing anything to make Rihanna happy again. This is probably made during the time during his trial where he was looking at facing 24 years in prison. It is a suspenseful moment, already filled with the fear that he will be gone from his already made life and the biggest disaster would be to see her wife sad that Rocky will be gone. This is probably why it was called DONT BE DUMB as by how he is contemplating all the stupid things he did in the past and trying to redeem himself in his adult life. “TRIP BABY” is the second half of this song and the production is a bubbly but glitchy electronic beat with Rocky riffing smoothly like he’s in the middle of walking. This emphasizes his joy out of winning the case and being with his family again. What I really like is that it slowly gets quieter and calmer like the tide just ended and he’s back to enjoying his life. Loukeman did an incredible job with the production on this song. He’s a really good choice to help with the beat-making with him known for mixing r&b, hip hop and pop so stylishly. It comes off really well here where he works his fractured and poppy distortions into the track. It’s a nice finish that I wish would end the album instead of “THE END.”Even though this song talking about how the world is going to sh*t for the first half is well-needed in this day and age, it doesn’t leave a lot to say and feels very disconnected from the album itself. Even Jessica Pratt, whom I really loved in “HIGHJACK,” feels added on instead of incorporated into the song. I wish the leaks didn’t happen because “HIGHJACK” would be a better choice for this album.
Overall, I think Rocky is the best when portraying glamorous ignorance. His experimentation is not as extreme as he thinks it is, but the music comprises its own sense of his extravagant charm and charisma. I can’t blame Rocky for the long release nor fault him for being unkind to some of his fans after the release because he had lived an extreme life in his adult years. ASAP Rocky is an experimenter to a small extent but those extents pack a big punch in the project while also preserving what truly matters. Despite all errors, it feels like throughout the music videos, live events, and other acts, he found his vibe and his culture. He’s set up for life and he ain’t dumb no more.
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