Review: A$AP Rocky - At.Long.Last.A$AP

[Settaz]

Score: 9.2

LSD, shrooms, and other “psychedelics” as A$AP Rocky calls them were all a big part in the creation of At.Long.Last.A$AP. Also, as a tragic and second inspiration was the death of a brother to A$AP Rocky, in A$AP Yams. When you look at artist, you want to see improvement, progression, maturation, and to see something at least a little different in every project. And, within that criteria A$AP Rocky not only lived up to that, but he has exceeded expectations with this album At.Long.Last.A$AP. You can tell from the start the sort of flow this album will have, as Rocky talks about his religion and how the church has changed to him.

So, whether than being someone who feels he needs to attend church, he worships God himself and has brought upon his own relationship with him. And this shows that Rocky, can and will as you listen through the album will get personal (whether it be for the good or bad *cough* Rita Ora *cough*) and tell some of his experiences. But, in talking about himself it’s not preachy about how the listener needs to improve their own life or about how bad he’s had it, because while sad that can get old pretty quick through a lengthy 18 track project. But, within these displays of emotion, Rocky doesn’t go away from realizing that the music still has to be a pleasing and a enjoyable experience for this at all to matter as many seem to forget. And this shows as Rocky has the best production of any project we have ever seen from him. It’s very trippy, hazy, and but not just dull and boring like most that attempt this feeling throughout an album. Along, with this great production we have memorable hooks throughout, as seen on songs like “Canal St.” and “L$D.”

Through the album, there are a great amount of features, but this isn’t where the guest totally outshine Rocky or leave you dissatisfied. Akin to Kanye West with “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, Rocky knows where and how to place these features, that expand from Joe Fox, to Future, perfectly. Rocky not only fits in these features at the right places, but he was able to bring the best out of them for the album and feel to come complete (FWA should be here any day now). Probably the most surprising performance on the album may be from Future, as he continues the melodic flow and ad-libs that M.I.A lays up for him on Fine Whine. If you haven’t kept up with Future this performance of melodic perfection, is something you wouldn’t be familiar with, but for those that have you’ll be well prepared from tracks like “Throw Away” or “Codeine Crazy”. The irony of this though, is the one feature that didn’t work was Kanye himself as he may have delivered one of his worst performances to date. It sounds as if he actually recorded his verse while drunk and mistakenly sent it out to A$AP Rocky, which could really be the only explanation for how bad that verse is.

One of A$AP Rocky’s best assets has always been his ability to flow through almost any beat effortlessly and making it enjoyable, and that hasn’t changed. But, what has improved since LiveLoveA$AP and Long.Live.A$AP is his ability of creating more complete music to go along with the enjoyability. When you listen to Long.Live.A$AP you can tell which of the albums were just put there for filler, and the songs where he was maybe reaching for some airplay. There is none of that on his latest project, and that is something to be respected as it’s not about radio airplay for Rocky now, but creating the best possible experience for the listener. So, now instead of momentarily enjoying “Fucking Problems”, we can forever enjoy the chemistry and fun nature of “Electric Body” featuring ScHoolboy Q. He’s now venturing off and trying new things, and they are working for him in a great way. Perhaps the greatest example of the ability Rocky has to make enjoyable music, whilst not selling himself short is “Canal St.” featuring Bones whereas this may be the greatest showing Rocky has put out to date. The stripped down, but not simple beat that provides a smooth and soothing feeling as Rocky just floats over the track as if it was made just right for him.

Through, the project though there is a sound that may not familiar to most. And it’s the influence that 80’s psychedelic rock had on this album as a whole. And the person the can be attributed to assisting bring this sound into this project is

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, who is featured on a lot of the album. This not only helps Rocky get the texture and feel that he was hoping for the album, but it brings a sense of completeness to it. Imagining this project without the new singing from Rocky, and the acoustic guitar would in a way make the album feel empty and incomplete. The presence of this is the most prevalent in one of the few tracks that Joe Fox isn’t actually featured in, which would be “L$D”, where Rocky sings over woozy production about his love for a female and the feeling it gives him. The circumstances in which Rocky found Joe Fox and got him to help with this album makes it seem as if it was meant to be for this album to become the great “masterpiece”, as Joe Fox himself calls it, we hear today.


Rocky is at a whole other level of creativity compared to most other rappers in his echelon, he was already a little weird, but now he’s become weird where he doesn’t care what your reaction is to how he does his work. If he wants to discover LSD, have three orgies, and rap about his crazy world and how it happened then he’s going to do it. The clear Houston influence is still there, but it’s not as influential in his music as it once was. He is now coming into his own sound, making his own music, and his own music is something we have yet to see in this genre. A$AP Rocky is only getting started, his weirdness is something that will only progress through his music and after hearing this album it’s something that is fully welcome. We want to explore and go through more of that trippy, crazy brain and world of his.

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