Last month, A$AP Rocky sat down at the Red Bull Music Academy in London to talk about his new album At.Long.Last.A$AP (or A.L.L.A.) and last night he came back for another conversation with the Academy, this time in New York City at the Madiba Harlem Theater. During the talk, he shared a new song called "Everyday," which samples Rod Stewart's "In A Broken Dream" and features vocals from Miguel and production from Mark Ronson. He also confirmed that the album would be dropping June 2.
"Only god can judge me but he don't like no ugly / I look so f*cking good most dykes would f*ck me, buddy / Yeah I'm a piece of sh*t / I know I plead the fifth / I tell her holla if you need some dick." Rocky raps.
During their conversation, he revealed that he gets anxious before releasing a new album and that A.L.L.A. is not theme-based but more "new age." He also spoke how Harlem has changed since his childhood, why he considers himself an outcast, the expectations of a black man in 2015, his popular singles being his least favorite songs, his experience acting in Dope, how he finds new music, why he likes listening to classical music while on Uber rides, how he looks young because he doesn't have facial hair, and the problem with one hit wonders.
Speaking on his hometown of Harlem, Rocky said it was "nothing like it is now. It's kind of a sad subject. You might want to switch it," adding, "There's no culture. The shit is sad man. I live in SoHo now, so it's cool."
When asked what influenced his style, he said that it came from many sources but that "growing up, definitely hip-hop and music videos. I think that helped everybody because we were the first genre to kinda affiliate ourselves with like actual name brands and stuff. Like certain brands just became hip-hop, like Adidas. That was just straight hip-hop, like Tommy Hilfiger at one point was just like straight hip-hop, GUESS stuff like that."
He also brought up his debut acting role in the film Dope, calling the experience "pretty ill."
"I was sober; I was corny. It started out as a challenge because I wanted to start off with a small role and work my way up, and I didn't expect for it to do all that Sundance stuff and Cannes, but it did," he said. "I think god is just good man that's all I can really say."
Switching from music to acting was an adjustment for the rapper, however.
"They tell you to show up to work at 5 a.m. and you don't start shooting until 3 p.m. and I wasn't smoking no weed," he explained. "It's totally different, when you do a live show you're reciting lyrics that you personally wrote, so it's like in your brain, you know. I feel like those lines are from someone else, either the writer or the director what's in the script those aren't your words so it's more difficult to memorize it as opposed to writing it yourself."
Listen to "Everyday" above and check out the talk below. Let us know what you think in the comments section!
