Key Takeaways:

• A$AP Rocky’s new album explores style fusion with jazz, steel and R&B influences.
• The venture options standout collaborations with Doechii, Brent Faiyaz and Westside Gunn.
• Lyrically, Rocky addresses leaks, authorized points and trade copycats whereas pushing his sound ahead.

A$AP Rocky’s Don’t Be Dumb is lastly right here after almost eight years since TESTING. The Harlem rapper’s long-awaited fourth studio album is both one thing followers have been extremely keen to listen to or the exact opposite, given all of the delays and unfastened singles. Either manner, he delivered 15 songs, two bonus tracks and an enormous lineup of options: Brent Faiyaz, Doechii and Westside Gunn, to say just a few.

“It’s been a lil’ while since I been in the league / A couple lil’ trials, couple of leaks,” Rocky opens the album with “ORDER OF PROTECTION,” the place he seemingly references final yr’s civil assault trial and the various songs that leaked forward of Don’t Be Dumb. It then segues into “HELICOPTER” (nonetheless no Playboi Carti) and an “INTERROGATION” skit about placing out “staticky good s**t.”

The very subsequent monitor, “STOLE YA FLOW,” is likely one of the extra loaded cuts, with Rocky referencing Tyler, The Creator — who later seems on “FISH N STEAK (WHAT IT IS)” — and Rihanna. As many followers have pointed out online, there’s additionally what appears to be a jab at Drake: “N**gas gettin’ BBLs, lucky we don’t body shame / Throwin’ dirt on Rocky name, turn around and copy game.”

On the extra experimental facet, we’re handled to the metal-inspired “STFU” and “ROBBERY” with Doechii. The latter goes in a extra jazz course, and arguably, Rocky couldn’t have picked a greater collaborator, because the Swamp Princess not solely delivers two verses but in addition trades bars backwards and forwards with him on the fifth and last. From there, the daddy of three jumps in his R&B bag on the primary half of “DON’T BE DUMB / TRIP BABY.”

While Don’t Be Dumb was teased as a fusion of “jazz, hip hop, metal, indie [and] R&B,” rap continues to be entrance and middle. You hear it on his anti-snitch anthem “STOP SNITCHING” with Sauce Walka, “WHISKEY (RELEASE ME),” and loads of different cuts. As an entire, the LP is a extra totally realized model of the idea he explored on 2018’s TESTING, simply executed with much more readability this time round. Take a hear beneath.