The slew of fashionable new-school MCs epitomized by Playboi Carti and A$AP Nast is one that arrives to photoshoots with individual makeup teams manicurists hair stylists clothing stylists barbers. Designers represented included (but were not limited to) Yohji Mahamoto, Rick Owens, Alexander McQueen, and Matthew M. In the elusive Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti’s 2020 GQ feature, the upscale attire he modeled for only 8 press photographs summed up to $21,085 in total costs. Decades ago, his photographer recently recounted for the Guardian, when Tupac Shakur posed for Rolling Stone at the genesis of its gravitation towards hip-hop culture, “he showed up with just one other guy,” carrying along “a couple different changes of clothes.” Whereas such was the expectation for any rap-adjacent magazine photoshoot then – the subjects themselves often donning baggy tops and worn jeans from their own homes – nearly 20 years later, the status quo has undergone an exponential shift. Okay / You too cool, that’s okay / I’m too cool, that’s okay / I’m too- that’s okay/ Okay, Okay!”Īs it stands, A$AP Nast finds himself amidst a growing class of present-era MCs who are, in his own words, too cool for hip-hop alone – just as much, if not more immersed in the infrastructure of high fashion as they are in the rap game. Upon emerging from the vehicle, he swaggered his way to the center of a sizeable entourage, putting into lyrics the general exterior insinuated by both his present aura and the career that furnished its context: He wore a neon green hoodie, matched with equally neon sunglasses and equally neon hair. The snippet itself began with a camera pan onto the aforementioned Rolls Royce, now with Nast sitting inside. At 30 years of age, his discography only consists of two tracks – Dogtalk (2018), and Designer Boi (2020) – despite his having been part of the collective since its founding in the early aughts. Yet – back down on the pavement below – group member A$AP Nast was filming for a song preview of his own. “New album gonna throw us back to them good ol A$AP days,” the song’s most thumbed-up Youtube comment mused. The specific portion of the shoot that surfaced online was a now-viral snippet of an upcoming A$AP Rocky single tentatively titled Sandman – which, clocking in at just a minute and six seconds, took a noticeable step backwards from the trap-infused musicality of modern-day hip-hop, moving further into the dreamy, cloud-rap haze that epitomized their ascent to prominence.
#At long last asap instrumental series#
That day’s video content was prominently featured in 2021’s virtual Yams Day concert, the latest addition to a series of annual performances held in honor of the collective’s deceased founder. 2: Too Cozy, their assertive sophomore full-length LP – and in what shaky cell-phone footage circulated social media of the display, it appeared indubitable that they were returning to such foundational ethos: members, decked out in hoodies and chains, bounced around without regard for the ceiling – not a floor – beneath them the microphone-bearer strutted about his space rapping loudly behind raucously pointing index fingers and pitch-black shades on the street below, a large crowd of affiliates and fans alike clustered around a lavish Rolls Royce, street barricades at hand nearby.
It had been the first inkling of a major release since 2017’s Cozy Tapes Vol. This past January, the boisterous New York City-based hip-hop collective A$AP Mob drew frantic speculation after being spotted shooting music video footage atop the roof of a Harlem bodega. How A$AP Nast helped to universalize dual prowess in hip-hop and fashion among modern-day MCs, and why it is entirely up to him to keep it afloat within the very community that started it all.
A$AP Nast & the Evolving Fashion of Hip-Hop
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