Kadhim’s totally hot album of the week #7

I recently told my friend that I couldn’t understand the hype surrounding A$AP Rocky. In a completely unrelated incident, I was called “a fucking codpiece” on Twitter by Felix Music Night headliner Mikill Pane (we’ve since patched things up). He didn’t think any of my questions in an email interview were any good. In particular, one question about why he didn’t rap about “guns and bitches” received this put down: “I’ll pretend you didn’t ask that…”

I learnt the hard way that rappers who pride themselves on the intelligence of their lyrical content get pretty exasperated at constantly being asked why they don’t rap about “guns and bitches”. By contrast, rappers like A$AP Rocky are riding on the fact the flow and twists of their raps sound fucking swag, rather than anyone thinking they’re saying anything profound.

This is what I didn’t understand. The first few times I listened to A$AP Rocky’s mixtape LiveLoveA$AP (partly produced by Clams Casino) I was constantly put off by the obnoxious predictability of his lyrical content, which can be summarized thus: “I’m high, I’ve got a big dick, I’m hitting on bitches, nigga yeah I’m the shit”. But, and this is a pretty big ‘but’, if you stuck those frankly awful lyrics that I just wrote together with A$AP’s cheeky intonations and Clams Casino’s bass-heavy, weed-ready production you might just find yourself saying, “This shit is fucking real”. (Ok, maybe not quite, but you get my point).

Ignore what he’s saying and just hear how it sounds and you’ll understand why some people are saying that A$AP Rocky is what hip-hop will sound like in 2012.

_If you agree that my mini-rap was god-awful, tweet me @kadhimshubber and call me a “fucking codpiece”. If, on the other hand, you think it was pretty good, tweet @_ASAProcky and tell him to check out “this sweet underground rapper from London”. _