koontakintay
Banned
- 6
- 10
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2015
damn dude...he dapped you up??? that's cool af
damn dude...he dapped you up??? that's cool af
- 21,345
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- Oct 10, 2005
RIP A$AP Yams
.
6 Rings G.O.A.T.
Supporter
- 134,224
- 113,209
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2006
Rest in peace.
Steven "ASAP Yams" Rodriguez.
Steven "ASAP Yams" Rodriguez.
- 7,165
- 1,812
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- Nov 26, 2012
most memorable dude in the "purple" video
Last edited:
- 44,171
- 2,499
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- Jun 17, 2006
Untimely death. Shoot... [emoji]128542[/emoji]
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- Jul 20, 2013
This has seriously got me bummed out. Yams was that dude, for real. I don't even think NY realizes what a great and important asset and Yams was and why his loss is such a Damn bummer.
Yams influenced a lot of ******* people and his contributions and promo put a lot people onto cats like Retch, Dash, Vince, Joey Fatts, Bodega Bams, Underachievers, Flatbush Zombies , etc etc . His contribution and role in ASAP highkey helped shed light on the New New York. Yams was a year older than me and being from the north east, he represented my generation. Mid-late 20 year olds who love NY hip hop but also loved a lot of other **** too. The east coast generation who was heavy on the Internet thus not limited to just or mainly NY hip hop because the barrier the Internet broke down for us. He represented my youth, but also not being a dickhead "stuck in the 00s" *** lame. He embraced the old, current, from coast to coast, region to region. He was for real a hip hip encyclopedia. He was ahead of the curve. He was doing **** that a lot of labels still don't have a grasp on and trying to figure out how to do successfully or just too lazy to do. A lot of people had a lot of respect for him and his behind the scene moves and his contributions to not just NY hip hop, but west coast artists as well. He was a cultural figure and represented something great for a lot of people. Sad dude didn't get to live out his dream of being a huge AR. He apparentjy was just about to announce he got a job working for Sony. Sad man. I truly believe if his time wasn't cut short, he would've been The Puff Daddy of the 2010s. Or like he wanted, Gotti. He looked up to Gotti.
I'm not even just saying this cause he died, either. We spoke a few times and I told him how much I respected his contribution to the culture. His vision and what he was aiming for was real respectable, admirable and inspirational. He went from interning for Duke Da God, to finding Rocky and using the Internet to create a platform to mold Rocky to blow up, be the biggest selling newer NY rapper (outside Nicki) since the mid 00s, get on the cover of Vogue, took a brand and made it into a movement and inspirational aesthetic world wide. World wide tours. And Drake and Rihanna tours.
RIP, Stevie. Your impact has been felt and NY lost a real important cultural figure and asset.
Yams influenced a lot of ******* people and his contributions and promo put a lot people onto cats like Retch, Dash, Vince, Joey Fatts, Bodega Bams, Underachievers, Flatbush Zombies , etc etc . His contribution and role in ASAP highkey helped shed light on the New New York. Yams was a year older than me and being from the north east, he represented my generation. Mid-late 20 year olds who love NY hip hop but also loved a lot of other **** too. The east coast generation who was heavy on the Internet thus not limited to just or mainly NY hip hop because the barrier the Internet broke down for us. He represented my youth, but also not being a dickhead "stuck in the 00s" *** lame. He embraced the old, current, from coast to coast, region to region. He was for real a hip hip encyclopedia. He was ahead of the curve. He was doing **** that a lot of labels still don't have a grasp on and trying to figure out how to do successfully or just too lazy to do. A lot of people had a lot of respect for him and his behind the scene moves and his contributions to not just NY hip hop, but west coast artists as well. He was a cultural figure and represented something great for a lot of people. Sad dude didn't get to live out his dream of being a huge AR. He apparentjy was just about to announce he got a job working for Sony. Sad man. I truly believe if his time wasn't cut short, he would've been The Puff Daddy of the 2010s. Or like he wanted, Gotti. He looked up to Gotti.
I'm not even just saying this cause he died, either. We spoke a few times and I told him how much I respected his contribution to the culture. His vision and what he was aiming for was real respectable, admirable and inspirational. He went from interning for Duke Da God, to finding Rocky and using the Internet to create a platform to mold Rocky to blow up, be the biggest selling newer NY rapper (outside Nicki) since the mid 00s, get on the cover of Vogue, took a brand and made it into a movement and inspirational aesthetic world wide. World wide tours. And Drake and Rihanna tours.
RIP, Stevie. Your impact has been felt and NY lost a real important cultural figure and asset.
Last edited:
36 ounces
Banned
- 5,273
- 822
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- Jun 17, 2008
Repped. That was a really dope post.
dh1water
Banned
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- Aug 15, 2014
- 2,391
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- Jan 28, 2010
slim k,
^ slow downs are literally all i listen to now..
man, unbelievable that yams is gone.. hopefully it wasn't from drug over dose or anything of that nature, but 9 times out of 10 that's what it'll be.. of all these young rappers wildin out, yams had to be the one to go ? tragic man.
- 2,432
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- Mar 2, 2012
most memorable dude in the "purple" video
This
I remember first seeing that video on here a couple months before A$AP Rocky dropped Live Love A$APDude was the funniest one out of the whole mob. R.I.P. Yams
- 4,463
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- Aug 7, 2005
R.I.P Yams
Last edited:
- 60,034
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- Dec 14, 2004
Ferg show was live last night 
- 6,703
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- Oct 11, 2007
Yea Ferg turned up last night. YG was on stage looking like he was taking notes.
- 9,784
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- Jul 1, 2009
How did your influence helped shape Rocky’s sound?
When I first met him, he sounded like Kid Cudi mixed with Lil Wayne. If I was a rapper, I’d be the illest ************ alive, swagging like a ************. So I took all my inspirations that I wanted to see in a rapper and molded it into Rocky. All that **** was premeditated. A year ago [2011], before all that **** happened, I was like Rocky, ‘you gotta listen to that Houston ****, this is the wave.’ He started listening to it and started naturally getting influenced by that ****.
He used to sound more like a stoner rapper and I was like not trying to hear that **** — not trying to hear about ************* getting high and smoking doobies. I was trying to hear some trill **** and you can see the influence.
If you watch the “Get High” video, you can see the Kid Cudi influence. What I did was mold the new influences and market him on some brand new ****. I tell everyone before they make it: find your swag and your sound.
Once we had that down pat, it was a matter of trial and error for two years, until we felt comfortable putting some **** out. The way people approach the Internet, they tweet their music and spam you. That’s not the way to do it. You’ve got to package your product confidently
RIP YAMS
When I first met him, he sounded like Kid Cudi mixed with Lil Wayne. If I was a rapper, I’d be the illest ************ alive, swagging like a ************. So I took all my inspirations that I wanted to see in a rapper and molded it into Rocky. All that **** was premeditated. A year ago [2011], before all that **** happened, I was like Rocky, ‘you gotta listen to that Houston ****, this is the wave.’ He started listening to it and started naturally getting influenced by that ****.
He used to sound more like a stoner rapper and I was like not trying to hear that **** — not trying to hear about ************* getting high and smoking doobies. I was trying to hear some trill **** and you can see the influence.
If you watch the “Get High” video, you can see the Kid Cudi influence. What I did was mold the new influences and market him on some brand new ****. I tell everyone before they make it: find your swag and your sound.
Once we had that down pat, it was a matter of trial and error for two years, until we felt comfortable putting some **** out. The way people approach the Internet, they tweet their music and spam you. That’s not the way to do it. You’ve got to package your product confidently
RIP YAMS
- 9,784
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- Jul 1, 2009
" I want to turn A$AP into a legitimate record label, not just a rap crew record label, where it’s one star and everyone else falls in line. I aspire for it to be the next Def Jam, where we sign legitimate acts, where we really have talent and stand on our own — not just on Rocky. A lot of people still think I’m the weed carrier, but that’ll change.'
- 23,619
- 10,403
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- Oct 18, 2011
Honestly I wonder how the crew will hold together. It's clear Yams was the the man with the ideas. I think Rocky will be ok just because he already has a foothold and other avenues to keep himself visible but the others?
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- Mar 30, 2013
an unpublished pitchfork interview from 2012. genuine insight into the mind this man had.
this year he was going to be senior vp of a&r at sony. what a devastating blow. still can't get over it.
i think steve deserves credit for making our culture (nyc especially) realize how insignificant geography is in something as universal as music.
through asap's fusion of styles wrapped in what was still a nyc foundation, folks were forced to open their minds and get with it or stay in the past. this foreshadowed what is to come in the music industry. a new hip-hop. a universal creativity. steve was the beginning of that changing of the guards, to me. he's a pioneer who masterminded the progression of nyc culture, and hip-hop as a whole. we'll never forget you.
How did your first industry job with Dipset come about?
I started in 2005 and knew Karen Civil who worked with them. Juelz Santana had a store up in Harlem that sold all customized clothes and one day I talked to Karen in there and asked if she could help me get an internship. I was in the 10th grade. She helped me get the unpaid internship. I dropped out of high school and ended up packing up Dipset mixtapes. I wasn’t making any money, so I’d steal a couple here and there and sell them to mixtape stores.
No one really wanted the interns to utilize their resources, but I did the exact opposite–hustling, eavesdropping on conversations, soaking up game. I watched Jim Jones closely as he went from being Cam’s right hand man to being an A&R at Warner — having his own company card and **** like that. Just watching them, I learned a lot about how to conduct business.
What sort of music did you listen to growing up?
I was a backpacker growing up, but on some good backpack **** — listening to Cage and **** like that. I first really got into Hip Hop in ’98, so I was listening to a lot of Cam’ron, DMX, Big Pun. If I found one artist that I liked, I needed to find all the materials — all the CDs. I really had to know if they were the **** or not. I was a student of the game, always listening.
Even at 12 years old, I was going back to hear Main Source’s Breaking Atoms. I was really on that kind of ****, Boot Camp Click, you know. 8th grade was my catch-up period. It was when I first head Illmatic, bought Raekwon’s first album, Wu’s first album. DJ Red Alert tapes. Park jams. I really grew up in it.
Did you have any family connected to the music?
Not really. Although one of my in-laws was Prospect from Terror Squad.
How did things change after Dipset broke up?
Everything changed. Dipset wasn’t just the voice of Harlem — they were the voice of New York for the longest time. G-Unit was really close-knit and didn’t really want to **** with anybody. Then for a minute, it was just Jim Jones and Juelz.
Everyone that rapped in Harlem broke off from Dipset, on some Wu Tang Killa Bees ****. Even me, I came from a Dipset background, everyone was affiliated.
What did you learn from them that you applied to A$AP Mob?
You gotta get what you want out of any situation. You gotta be an ******* about it. You gotta utilize resources to the most of your ability. Sometimes a label might not wanna give you them. One time they tried to do that to Dipset and Cam took a fire extinguisher and started spraying everyone in the office. He was going off. And they got what they wanted.
But now in todays age, you can’t be street in those offices. There’s a lot more paperwork. You can’t be like 50 Cent and Cam smacking people in the Sony building and bragging about it.
Did you always go to school in Harlem?
I actually went to Junior High School on the Upper Westside. Everyone from Harlem went there. It was a real segregated school that occupied a couple floors of a building. I was on the worst one. The other kids had fancy Apple’s and Mac computers and we had IBM’s and ****.
Did you ever rap?
I used to rap in middle school, trying to be like Nas and extra-lyrical. My rap name was Sensei the Golden Child and I’d battle people. To this day, if you’re around us, even with me, I’ll be in the studio. Rocky will be playing a beat and I’ll be rapping some **** in my head, but that’s just natural.
Did you go to college at all?
I did try college for one semester at BMCC, but I took my student loan and got some gold teeth. I didn’t get no books.
Had you always wanted to be in the music business?
I’d been trying to since the 9th grade. Even then, I used to manage producers while I was in high school. My first album placement was getting one of those producers on Trae’s Restless. I got placements on miscellaneous Dipset albums and mixtapes — so even as a sophomore, I’d be walking around with industry money in my pocket.
How did your influence helped shape Rocky’s sound?
When I first met him, he sounded like Kid Cudi mixed with Lil Wayne. If I was a rapper, I’d be the illest ************ alive, swagging like a ************. So I took all my inspirations that I wanted to see in a rapper and molded it into Rocky. All that **** was premeditated. A year ago [2011], before all that **** happened, I was like Rocky, ‘you gotta listen to that Houston ****, this is the wave.’ He started listening to it and started naturally getting influenced by that ****.
He used to sound more like a stoner rapper and I was like not trying to hear that **** — not trying to hear about ************* getting high and smoking doobies. I was trying to hear some trill **** and you can see the influence.
If you watch the “Get High” video, you can see the Kid Cudi influence. What I did was mold the new influences and market him on some brand new ****. I tell everyone before they make it: find your swag and your sound.
Once we had that down pat, it was a matter of trial and error for two years, until we felt comfortable putting some **** out. The way people approach the Internet, they tweet their music and spam you. That’s not the way to do it. You’ve got to package your product confidently.
How did the “Purple Swag” and “Peso” videos come about?
That was all Rocky’s doing. It sounds cliché, but everything in rap is a cliché. During that period, he really sat down and jotted down ideas. He was behind the person shooting, saying, ‘I want this that way.’
One thing that bothers me is that when “Peso” dropped, people were talking **** about how he was trying to sound Southern. “Peso” is what NYC rap is supposed to sound like in 2012. We’ve been so lost for so long, trying to keep up with the club ****. All them ************* is drunk, they don’t give a **** whose song it is. Bumping Chingy, doing the chicken on the dance floor, and they not gonna remember any of it when they wake up in the morning. “Peso” is new New York rap.
We never purposely try to sound like anything ever, even with the whole Houston thing — it was all natural. If you listen to Rocky’s music, it never follows certain song structure. It was so dope that the mix DJs actually picked up on it before we had a deal. I remember the first time we heard “Peso” coming out of a car. We were just chilling in Harlem and a car just rode past us bumping it. I think we were about to cry that day. A car in NYC was playing our **** — **** that Rocky recorded in a closet somewhere in Brooklyn.
How would you define new New York rap?
It’s not really progressive, but 2012 is the changing of the gods. It’s like when Nas came out and everyone’s rhyme style wasn’t simplistic anymore. Or ’98, when DMX came out and a whole new wave started. Then we didn’t have another golden year until 2012. Now we got Flatbush Zombies. I’ve known them personally for a long *** time and almost died at their crib once. We got Bronson, Mr. MFN eXquire. This is the new age for the new generation.
Before that, everyone was either trying to keep up with the clubs or sucking Jay’s ****. Everyone was trying to fall into line with someone else. There was no fresh movement besides Diplomats and G-Unit, and that was 8 years ago. None of these young ************* could relate.
There was no voice for the youth in NYC. I like listening to Uncle Murda, but I doubt a 15 year-old kid who skateboards and looks at ******* on Tumblr does.
How did the whole mob come together?
ASAP Bari is kind of the one that brought everyone together. He was bothering me, ‘you gotta get this kid, he nice, you gotta talk to him.’ He knew I was doing the music thing. One day I met Rocky, but a fight broke out, and I couldn’t chop it up with him like that. I didn’t get to speak to him for another 6 to 7 months.
Then one day, he called me from Alabama (where he was going to school) and said, ‘I really wanna make this happen. What we gotta do to make this **** rocking.’ He flew back up here, and as soon as I met him, we automatically had natural chemistry. I knew what he needed to sound like and he knew how I worked. We just liked the same ****, which made it easier.
How did you end up hearing about him in the first place?He used to chill a lot on my block because he went to school two blocks away. He knew all the same people that I hung out with when I was 11 or 12, but we never had met before.
Did you already have the name ASAP at that point?
My homie Adi had come up with the name. It was originally a management company, but it sounded so authentic and genuine that we ran with it.
When I first met Rocky, he had about three tracks recorded and had barely gone into the studio before. He didn’t know how to work sometimes. It sounded like he was mumbling. He still needed to get everything together.
At that time, I was still managing producers — that’s where my money was coming from — that and other dirt hustles. I went from managing producers to the point where I was like, I want to turn A$AP into a legitimate record label, not just a rap crew record label, where it’s one star and everyone else falls in line. I aspire for it to be the next Def Jam, where we sign legitimate acts, where we really have talent and stand on our own — not just on Rocky. A lot of people still think I’m the weed carrier, but that’ll change.
How did you end up starting RNT?
I was bored one day. I thought Tumblr was gay at first. I thought it was some real emo ****. My ***** at the time had a tumblr, so I started one and that **** was addicting as **** that **** and wavy. I was getting ***** off Tumblr. People started becoming fans of that ****, hitting me up and being like, you put me up on Max B. I eventually started using it to promote Rocky.
How did everything change when “Purple Swag” dropped?
That was the most annoying time. Everyone in the industry hates me. They were like, ‘**** Yams, why doesn’t he pick up his phone? Rocky needs more serious management.’
What happened was: I turned my phone off. ************* were bothering us. They were trying to give us the new artist deal, the $50-100,000 ******** new artist deal. I was like, “I’m good, **** that. Dickhead A&Rs are the most annoying people I ever met. I hate them.
The rap world would be a lot better if bloggers had more of a business mindset. Then when “Peso” dropped, that **** was the most insane ****. No one wanted to give us what we wanted and we had some crazy *** demands. The first thing we wanted was a label deal, our own imprint, nobody even know who the other A$AP artists were. They were like, ‘you want a imprint, what?’
What made you sign with Polo Grounds?
They had faith in us and put their minds and money behind us. It’s funny because Bryan Leach, the owner of Polo Grounds wanted to kill me because I was literally not picking up his phone call for two months. We’d met through a mutual friend, one of Rocky’s managers, and he introduced us to [Leach] and we got a feel for him.
He knows how to work records. He’s major, but knows how to be independent. People looked at us like we were crazy. They expected us to sign to Def Jam, but we went with who provided the best deal for us. He got us what we wanted.
Had they heard all of LiveLoveA$AP?
No, they heard a couple cuts without hearing the whole thing. The story that we pumped was: we got a brand new artist, young as ****, from New York which is a dead market right now. There’s no way any of us can lose in a situation like that.
It was a very lucrative deal. But people that don’t know about the music industry automatically say, ‘How the **** did you get three million?’
How did you get all those artists on the first mixtape?
I put Rocky onto Schoolboy Q. We would listen to Setbacks all day. And he really ****** with us off “Purple Swag.” That was love right there. If you just heard that one song, you could’ve taken that as gimmicky, but he didn’t.
But really, people ****** with me off the strength off the Tumblr. Clams ****** with me too from it. They started asking me about Rocky. We was just working off the love back then, no one had blown up or caught that wave. Clams was still preparing to drop his Tri Angle EP. He was only popular on Tumblr at the time.
How did the Drake tour come about?
Through two people — Chase n Cashe and a guy named Tom. He played one of them the “Purple Swag” record and the next day it was on OVO’s blog and after that, it went to a whole other level. It wasn’t just Tumblr anymore.
I have a genuine respect for Drake. People can say whatever the **** they want, someone with that many #1 hits, for them to bring someone from the underground and pay respect to them, means they’re a student of the game. He has respect for all sub-genres.
What’s the immediate future look like?
The debut A$AP Rocky album, but we also might do a mixtape with DJ Clue too. We’re going to work all the artists in A$AP Mob — looking to sign and obtain new talent to add to the roster. But right now, it’s about molding our brand and our music.
What’s your ultimate goal?
I want A$AP Worldwide to be treated like a legitimate record label with actual artists on it and actual platinum plaques. Rocky is a fashion weirdo, so he’s going to work on his fashion **** and all that — probably even do a film company, put out some books and ****. We just do wanna do some wavy ****.
I started in 2005 and knew Karen Civil who worked with them. Juelz Santana had a store up in Harlem that sold all customized clothes and one day I talked to Karen in there and asked if she could help me get an internship. I was in the 10th grade. She helped me get the unpaid internship. I dropped out of high school and ended up packing up Dipset mixtapes. I wasn’t making any money, so I’d steal a couple here and there and sell them to mixtape stores.
No one really wanted the interns to utilize their resources, but I did the exact opposite–hustling, eavesdropping on conversations, soaking up game. I watched Jim Jones closely as he went from being Cam’s right hand man to being an A&R at Warner — having his own company card and **** like that. Just watching them, I learned a lot about how to conduct business.
What sort of music did you listen to growing up?
I was a backpacker growing up, but on some good backpack **** — listening to Cage and **** like that. I first really got into Hip Hop in ’98, so I was listening to a lot of Cam’ron, DMX, Big Pun. If I found one artist that I liked, I needed to find all the materials — all the CDs. I really had to know if they were the **** or not. I was a student of the game, always listening.
Even at 12 years old, I was going back to hear Main Source’s Breaking Atoms. I was really on that kind of ****, Boot Camp Click, you know. 8th grade was my catch-up period. It was when I first head Illmatic, bought Raekwon’s first album, Wu’s first album. DJ Red Alert tapes. Park jams. I really grew up in it.
Did you have any family connected to the music?
Not really. Although one of my in-laws was Prospect from Terror Squad.
How did things change after Dipset broke up?
Everything changed. Dipset wasn’t just the voice of Harlem — they were the voice of New York for the longest time. G-Unit was really close-knit and didn’t really want to **** with anybody. Then for a minute, it was just Jim Jones and Juelz.
Everyone that rapped in Harlem broke off from Dipset, on some Wu Tang Killa Bees ****. Even me, I came from a Dipset background, everyone was affiliated.
What did you learn from them that you applied to A$AP Mob?
You gotta get what you want out of any situation. You gotta be an ******* about it. You gotta utilize resources to the most of your ability. Sometimes a label might not wanna give you them. One time they tried to do that to Dipset and Cam took a fire extinguisher and started spraying everyone in the office. He was going off. And they got what they wanted.
But now in todays age, you can’t be street in those offices. There’s a lot more paperwork. You can’t be like 50 Cent and Cam smacking people in the Sony building and bragging about it.
Did you always go to school in Harlem?
I actually went to Junior High School on the Upper Westside. Everyone from Harlem went there. It was a real segregated school that occupied a couple floors of a building. I was on the worst one. The other kids had fancy Apple’s and Mac computers and we had IBM’s and ****.
Did you ever rap?
I used to rap in middle school, trying to be like Nas and extra-lyrical. My rap name was Sensei the Golden Child and I’d battle people. To this day, if you’re around us, even with me, I’ll be in the studio. Rocky will be playing a beat and I’ll be rapping some **** in my head, but that’s just natural.
Did you go to college at all?
I did try college for one semester at BMCC, but I took my student loan and got some gold teeth. I didn’t get no books.
Had you always wanted to be in the music business?
I’d been trying to since the 9th grade. Even then, I used to manage producers while I was in high school. My first album placement was getting one of those producers on Trae’s Restless. I got placements on miscellaneous Dipset albums and mixtapes — so even as a sophomore, I’d be walking around with industry money in my pocket.
How did your influence helped shape Rocky’s sound?
When I first met him, he sounded like Kid Cudi mixed with Lil Wayne. If I was a rapper, I’d be the illest ************ alive, swagging like a ************. So I took all my inspirations that I wanted to see in a rapper and molded it into Rocky. All that **** was premeditated. A year ago [2011], before all that **** happened, I was like Rocky, ‘you gotta listen to that Houston ****, this is the wave.’ He started listening to it and started naturally getting influenced by that ****.
He used to sound more like a stoner rapper and I was like not trying to hear that **** — not trying to hear about ************* getting high and smoking doobies. I was trying to hear some trill **** and you can see the influence.
If you watch the “Get High” video, you can see the Kid Cudi influence. What I did was mold the new influences and market him on some brand new ****. I tell everyone before they make it: find your swag and your sound.
Once we had that down pat, it was a matter of trial and error for two years, until we felt comfortable putting some **** out. The way people approach the Internet, they tweet their music and spam you. That’s not the way to do it. You’ve got to package your product confidently.
How did the “Purple Swag” and “Peso” videos come about?
That was all Rocky’s doing. It sounds cliché, but everything in rap is a cliché. During that period, he really sat down and jotted down ideas. He was behind the person shooting, saying, ‘I want this that way.’
One thing that bothers me is that when “Peso” dropped, people were talking **** about how he was trying to sound Southern. “Peso” is what NYC rap is supposed to sound like in 2012. We’ve been so lost for so long, trying to keep up with the club ****. All them ************* is drunk, they don’t give a **** whose song it is. Bumping Chingy, doing the chicken on the dance floor, and they not gonna remember any of it when they wake up in the morning. “Peso” is new New York rap.
We never purposely try to sound like anything ever, even with the whole Houston thing — it was all natural. If you listen to Rocky’s music, it never follows certain song structure. It was so dope that the mix DJs actually picked up on it before we had a deal. I remember the first time we heard “Peso” coming out of a car. We were just chilling in Harlem and a car just rode past us bumping it. I think we were about to cry that day. A car in NYC was playing our **** — **** that Rocky recorded in a closet somewhere in Brooklyn.
How would you define new New York rap?
It’s not really progressive, but 2012 is the changing of the gods. It’s like when Nas came out and everyone’s rhyme style wasn’t simplistic anymore. Or ’98, when DMX came out and a whole new wave started. Then we didn’t have another golden year until 2012. Now we got Flatbush Zombies. I’ve known them personally for a long *** time and almost died at their crib once. We got Bronson, Mr. MFN eXquire. This is the new age for the new generation.
Before that, everyone was either trying to keep up with the clubs or sucking Jay’s ****. Everyone was trying to fall into line with someone else. There was no fresh movement besides Diplomats and G-Unit, and that was 8 years ago. None of these young ************* could relate.
There was no voice for the youth in NYC. I like listening to Uncle Murda, but I doubt a 15 year-old kid who skateboards and looks at ******* on Tumblr does.
How did the whole mob come together?
ASAP Bari is kind of the one that brought everyone together. He was bothering me, ‘you gotta get this kid, he nice, you gotta talk to him.’ He knew I was doing the music thing. One day I met Rocky, but a fight broke out, and I couldn’t chop it up with him like that. I didn’t get to speak to him for another 6 to 7 months.
Then one day, he called me from Alabama (where he was going to school) and said, ‘I really wanna make this happen. What we gotta do to make this **** rocking.’ He flew back up here, and as soon as I met him, we automatically had natural chemistry. I knew what he needed to sound like and he knew how I worked. We just liked the same ****, which made it easier.
How did you end up hearing about him in the first place?He used to chill a lot on my block because he went to school two blocks away. He knew all the same people that I hung out with when I was 11 or 12, but we never had met before.
Did you already have the name ASAP at that point?
My homie Adi had come up with the name. It was originally a management company, but it sounded so authentic and genuine that we ran with it.
When I first met Rocky, he had about three tracks recorded and had barely gone into the studio before. He didn’t know how to work sometimes. It sounded like he was mumbling. He still needed to get everything together.
At that time, I was still managing producers — that’s where my money was coming from — that and other dirt hustles. I went from managing producers to the point where I was like, I want to turn A$AP into a legitimate record label, not just a rap crew record label, where it’s one star and everyone else falls in line. I aspire for it to be the next Def Jam, where we sign legitimate acts, where we really have talent and stand on our own — not just on Rocky. A lot of people still think I’m the weed carrier, but that’ll change.
How did you end up starting RNT?
I was bored one day. I thought Tumblr was gay at first. I thought it was some real emo ****. My ***** at the time had a tumblr, so I started one and that **** was addicting as **** that **** and wavy. I was getting ***** off Tumblr. People started becoming fans of that ****, hitting me up and being like, you put me up on Max B. I eventually started using it to promote Rocky.
How did everything change when “Purple Swag” dropped?
That was the most annoying time. Everyone in the industry hates me. They were like, ‘**** Yams, why doesn’t he pick up his phone? Rocky needs more serious management.’
What happened was: I turned my phone off. ************* were bothering us. They were trying to give us the new artist deal, the $50-100,000 ******** new artist deal. I was like, “I’m good, **** that. Dickhead A&Rs are the most annoying people I ever met. I hate them.
The rap world would be a lot better if bloggers had more of a business mindset. Then when “Peso” dropped, that **** was the most insane ****. No one wanted to give us what we wanted and we had some crazy *** demands. The first thing we wanted was a label deal, our own imprint, nobody even know who the other A$AP artists were. They were like, ‘you want a imprint, what?’
What made you sign with Polo Grounds?
They had faith in us and put their minds and money behind us. It’s funny because Bryan Leach, the owner of Polo Grounds wanted to kill me because I was literally not picking up his phone call for two months. We’d met through a mutual friend, one of Rocky’s managers, and he introduced us to [Leach] and we got a feel for him.
He knows how to work records. He’s major, but knows how to be independent. People looked at us like we were crazy. They expected us to sign to Def Jam, but we went with who provided the best deal for us. He got us what we wanted.
Had they heard all of LiveLoveA$AP?
No, they heard a couple cuts without hearing the whole thing. The story that we pumped was: we got a brand new artist, young as ****, from New York which is a dead market right now. There’s no way any of us can lose in a situation like that.
It was a very lucrative deal. But people that don’t know about the music industry automatically say, ‘How the **** did you get three million?’
How did you get all those artists on the first mixtape?
I put Rocky onto Schoolboy Q. We would listen to Setbacks all day. And he really ****** with us off “Purple Swag.” That was love right there. If you just heard that one song, you could’ve taken that as gimmicky, but he didn’t.
But really, people ****** with me off the strength off the Tumblr. Clams ****** with me too from it. They started asking me about Rocky. We was just working off the love back then, no one had blown up or caught that wave. Clams was still preparing to drop his Tri Angle EP. He was only popular on Tumblr at the time.
How did the Drake tour come about?
Through two people — Chase n Cashe and a guy named Tom. He played one of them the “Purple Swag” record and the next day it was on OVO’s blog and after that, it went to a whole other level. It wasn’t just Tumblr anymore.
I have a genuine respect for Drake. People can say whatever the **** they want, someone with that many #1 hits, for them to bring someone from the underground and pay respect to them, means they’re a student of the game. He has respect for all sub-genres.
What’s the immediate future look like?
The debut A$AP Rocky album, but we also might do a mixtape with DJ Clue too. We’re going to work all the artists in A$AP Mob — looking to sign and obtain new talent to add to the roster. But right now, it’s about molding our brand and our music.
What’s your ultimate goal?
I want A$AP Worldwide to be treated like a legitimate record label with actual artists on it and actual platinum plaques. Rocky is a fashion weirdo, so he’s going to work on his fashion **** and all that — probably even do a film company, put out some books and ****. We just do wanna do some wavy ****.
i think steve deserves credit for making our culture (nyc especially) realize how insignificant geography is in something as universal as music.
through asap's fusion of styles wrapped in what was still a nyc foundation, folks were forced to open their minds and get with it or stay in the past. this foreshadowed what is to come in the music industry. a new hip-hop. a universal creativity. steve was the beginning of that changing of the guards, to me. he's a pioneer who masterminded the progression of nyc culture, and hip-hop as a whole. we'll never forget you.
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RIP to the Young King... He represents the culture I love and am embedded in.
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damn. sad situation. I like where his head was at. why wasnt this interview published?
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I agree, But i think his passing wasnt just bad for NY i feel it was bad for good hiphop in general because i think he woulda been the bridge for alot of ppl meaning he would be the one to connect ppl who would never cross paths if not for him. Pa def woulda been a newer Master P/Puff/Gotti dude had those visions definitely
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truth be told, there aren't too many label employees with a solid understanding/respect for hip-hop history and an innovative and authentic view for the future. most of us confuse more white rappers with cultural progression but it's soooo much bigger than that.
the future of a culture is founded upon its history. without embracing and studying it entirely, we can never truly move forward. yams was the last of the mohicans. there ain't too many of us left, and surely not behind an executive desk.
let's keep his name and vision alive by moving this culture forward the right way.
the future of a culture is founded upon its history. without embracing and studying it entirely, we can never truly move forward. yams was the last of the mohicans. there ain't too many of us left, and surely not behind an executive desk.
let's keep his name and vision alive by moving this culture forward the right way.
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Eh you never know why it never came I will say tho at the time when Purple Swag broke a lot of ****** felt like he was an industry plant/label creation biting and using the Houston sound to get hot. He was refuting that by saying he grew up mainly on Houston music and been listening to it tough his whole life so naturally his music would sound like that but as we can see from the interview that clearly wasn't the case
Idk I just feel like some of the stuff said would've went against the narrative they had built for him.
Bruh really dropped some jewels tho he def had a talent. Knew how to craft a sound and image but also knew how to package it up for the masses. I don't really like some of the obvious tumblr-core stuff they do like that Riot Rave video but I can't eem hate, he saw an audience and marketed to them perfectly.
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yeah, I think rocky felt pressured to say he was down with houston from jump
I don't think Steve coached him to say it or anything
I think it's a thing rocky said so they all had to run with it
I understand the pressure cause houston is very laid back but very strong on respect
we'll ride with you whether you from houston or not as long as you pay the proper respect
cats here will straight shoot you if you feel bigger than the city
I don't think Steve coached him to say it or anything
I think it's a thing rocky said so they all had to run with it
I understand the pressure cause houston is very laid back but very strong on respect
we'll ride with you whether you from houston or not as long as you pay the proper respect
cats here will straight shoot you if you feel bigger than the city
