His latest effort, At.$AP continues to invest in the murky and brooding rap that’s kept him afloat in a genre where relevance is heartbreakingly ephemeral. The thought of some sort of new world order, with skull-and-bones exclusivity, is why extemporaneous mixtapes became more intriguing than label-sanctioned albums: they’re more impulsive, more coarse and appear to more genuinely echo these enigmatic secret societies.Ĭonstantly fluctuating the acronym in his moniker, A$AP Rocky has always nourished the cloudy aura surrounding him and his Harlem-bred squad. To put another way, our fascination with Dipset, Odd Future and A$AP Mob and virtually all rap crews is derived from that which we don’t see and don’t comprehend. Rap fans certainly like Dipset’s panache and New York jingoism, but what they love is the semiotic enigma beneath their slang and colorful fur coats. While the music is fun, it’s the nebulous gap swimming below the rapper’s literal offering and the metaphysical ideologies that the lyrical output supposedly represent. We can never know what truth is meant to fill these vast holes in A$AP Mob’s narrative.
However, I have no idea what mysterious threads link the A$AP Mob nor do I have any idea what, presumably, lofty goals unify the mob. They make me want to toss all of my paltry belongings into the Pacific Ocean, quit my job and do whatever I need to do, to pledge allegiance, so that I may give indifferent side-eye on the Mob’s gothic flanks. Like so many collectives in rap, transmissions from the A$AP Mob are cryptic and confidently ooze a cooler-than-thou ethos that-trust me-you covet their combat boots and skintight black chinos exude something intangible and make me think that they have otherworldly affiliations, of which I’m jealous.
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