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It has been eight years since A$AP Rocky, once and future king of New York rap, released an album. In the world of hip-hop, where even A-list stars such as Rocky’s friend and collaborator Tyler, the Creator are prone to releasing multiple albums a year, this is a lifetime. In the time since Rocky released his third album, 2018’s Testing, Kanye West has rebranded as a born-again Christian, swerved to the right and released five albums. Rocky hasn’t been sitting around: he’s been a press mainstay, thanks to his relationship with pop superstar Rihanna, with whom he now has three children, and last year was acquitted of firing a gun at a former friend, dodging up to 24 years in prison. He has also found acclaim as an actor, starring opposite Rose Byrne in the lauded dark comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest.
Aside from a few one-off singles, such as the Tame Impala collaboration Sundress, Rocky has released music in fits and starts in recent years. (In terms of mainstream stars, perhaps only Rocky’s romantic partner outpaces him when it comes to leaving fans waiting: it has been a decade since Rihanna’s last record.) Testing yielded the Skepta-featuring hit Praise the Lord (Da Shine), but otherwise fell flat with mainstream audiences and critics alike, lacking the dynamism and potent charisma of his breakout albums. That album seemed to leave Rocky at a crossroads. Would it serve him best to continue exploring its slipshod experimentalism, or to make an attempt at retrenchment, and return to the more straightforward music that made him famous?
Don’t Be Dumb, Rocky’s fourth album, attempts both options at the same time: Despite its hour-long runtime, it feels brash and fleet-footed, excising Testing’s ponderous avant garde samples and experiments with singing, and reigniting some of the fiery, shit-stirrer attitude that animated Rocky’s 2013 major-label debut, Long.Live.A$AP. But it’s hardly a slam-dunk. Some songs feel phoned-in lyrically, and others feel overstuffed with production elements; as is so often the case with years-in-the-making albums, an edit feels necessary. Even so, it’s coherent and plainly fun to listen to: the guest list might feature everyone from Hans Zimmer to Tyler, the Creator to indie folk luminary Jessica Pratt, but Rocky is the star here, and he’s worth the price of admission.
As ever, Rocky’s charisma knows no bounds. Stole Ya Flow is ostensibly a Drake diss track, but it succeeds because Rocky sounds like he’s having so much fun: “N***** gettin’ BBLs / Lucky we don’t body shame,” he raps, relishing in the line’s petty faux-altruism. (Drake has denied having some plastic surgery procedures.) On the warm, dazed Playa, Rocky sounds positively avuncular, rapping as if he’s giving advice to someone in love for the first time, though the advice is, admittedly, very specific and kind of callous: “No receipts, don’t text.” On Air Force (Black Demarco), he raps over the kind of harsh, glitchy beat that would feel at home on a Playboi Carti album, before a beat-switch into stoned psych-rock; it feels like a canny fourth-wall break, a sly taunt to anyone who trashed the indie-leaning Testing.
These sharper moments bump up against lyrics that can sometimes feel purely lazy: his observation on Helicopter that people would “do anything for a blue check” – as in, on X – is a potent reminder that Rocky is now a father of three. Later, on the Gorillaz collab Whiskey, he seemingly zones out into full-blown free association: “Tipsy, kiss me so wet, they make bridges / I don’t burn no bridges / Tryna hold it in, I don’t burn no friendships,” he mumbles, his lethargy so strong that it threatens to sink the whole record. These flabbier sections are, thankfully, outweighed by Don’t Be Dumb’s sprightlier moments: altogether, it’s Rocky’s strongest album since his debut, buoyed by a sense of playfulness he seemed to have lost for a second. Fans dumbfounded by Testing can breathe easy.
