After gaining worldwide attention with his classic LIVE.LOVE.A$AP mixtape, A$AP Mob member A$AP Rocky is now delivering his full-length commercial debut. The album kicks off with the title track, where he talks about being remember in the future over a murky instrumental. The next song “Goldie” is charismatic party joint over a bouncy Hit-Boy instrumental while P.M.W. (Pussy Money Weed) [All I Really Need] with ScHoolboy Q sees the 2 getting self-explanatory over a banging trap beat. The track “LVL” basically reuses the Clams Casino instrumental in an ambitious fashion while the song “Hell” with Santigold continues this theme over an thumping EDM-ish instrumental from Clams.
The track “Pain” with OverDoz sees the 3 talking about their fame over a Tyler, The Creator like-trap instrumental while “Fuckin’ Problems” with Drake & Kendrick Lamar charismatically talks about getting bad bitches over a nocturnal 40 instrumental. The song “Wild for the Night” is about partying over a dubstep instrumental from Skrillex & Birdy Nam Nam is “1 Train” is a perfect modern all-star posse cut with Kendrick, Joey Bada$$, the Country Cousins (Big K.R.I.T. & Yelawolf), Danny Brown & Action Bronson. Everyone goes in, but I think Krizzle’s verse at the end really stole the show. The track “Fashion Killa” talks about how attractive his woman is over a trap beat with some harmonious background vocals while the song “Phoenix” sees Rocky looking back from where he started to where he is now over a piano-tinged instrumental from Danger Mouse. The standard edition finishes with “Suddenly” where Rocky talks about his sudden rise to fame over a settle instrumental.
There are 5 bonus tracks on here & I wanna mention them real quickly because I enjoyed them as much as the main record. The first bonus track “Jodye” disses SpaceGhostPurrp over a haunting instrumental while “Ghetto Symphony” with Gunplay & A$AP Ferg gets confrontational over a hard hitting instrumental with from dramatic strings. The 3rd bonus track “Angels” is an emotional look back at his childhood over a booming chime instrumental while “I Come Apart” talks about a dysfunctional relationship over a soaring instrumental & the Florence Welch hook fits in very well. The final bonus track I wanna mention is ‘”Pretty Flacko 1.5″, which was an official website pre-order exclusive. Reason why I wanna mention it is because not only does the new Rocky verse at the start shows how much he’s evolved within the past 2 years but the featured verses from Gucci Mane, Waka Flocka Flame & surprisingly Pharrell suit it very well also.
While it’s not better than LIVE.LOVE.A$AP & it is a more commercial version of that tape, it’s still a solid project. The beats are just as hard & Rocky has evolved quite a bit as a fun performer
Score: 3.5/5
Legends Will Never Die 