In the eight years since A$AP Rocky released his last album, Testing, the Harlem rapper has had three children, faced multiple court cases, starred in not one but two A24 movies, and became the creative director of three brands: Puma x F1, Ray-Ban and his own label AWGE.
He’s a busy guy, so it’s no wonder it took the best part of a decade for him to release his fourth studio album, Don’t Be Dumb, which finally landed today (January 16). The opening bar of the opening track (“Order of Protection”) offers further insight into his hiatus: “It’s been a lil’ while since I been in the league / A couple lil’ trials, couple of leaks” he raps. To his frustration, over the past few years, his unreleased tracks have been leaked online on several occasions, meaning the album got pushed back time and time again. Today, he claims that 85 per cent of the album is brand new material, with only a couple of previously leaked demos included.
It’s a return to oldschool A$AP Rocky, updated for the present day – as he told The New York Times, “This album is what 2011 Rocky would be making in 2026” – and yet, it also exists within the world of Tim Burton. “I’ve always been inspired by Tim Burton – The Nightmare Before Christmas was my favourite movie growing up,” he explained on Instagram. The rapper enlisted the celebrated filmmaker to illustrate the album artwork and bring each of his alter egos to life, from Babushka Boi to Mr Mayers.
Matching the chaos of Burton’s world, it’s an eclectic body of work that allows A$AP’s various alter egos to shine through, encompassing a whole lot of genres (hip-hop, indie, R&B, jazz and metal) and a long list of features including Brent Faiyaz, Danny Elfman, Doechii, Gorillaz, Slay Squad, Thundercat, Tyler, The Creator, Westside Gunn, and will.i.am. Unhelpfully, the artists featured aren’t named on the tracklist, however, to make life a little easier for you, we breakdown our top five artist features on Don’t Be Dumb.
It’d be safe to say that “STFU” demands attention. Opening with the rapper’s echoing voice telling us to “shut the fuck up”, the track quickly launches into a fast, aggressive beat, favoured by Californian heavy metal band, Slay Squad. Since forming a decade ago, the band has grown popular for inventing the genre “ghetto metal”, which seeps into “STFU” with verses from the band’s vocalists Brahim Gousse and Keilo Kei. It may not be a relaxing song, but we’re here for A$AP Rocky’s hardcore journey.
Almost a decade ago, Tyler, The Creator dropped “What The Fuck Right Now”, a deep-cut fan favourite that never made it onto streaming. It opened with A$AP saying “they ain’t ready for what we about to bring back / They ain’t ready for Tyler with the green hat” and features background adlibs from A$AP throughout the track. He later appeared in the DIY music video showing them in the studio, which marked the beginning of the duo as longtime collaborators. Now, the pair are back with a trippy, slightly restrained track that feels reminiscent of AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP. Closing out the album, “Fish N Steak (What It Is)” also features what appears to be another mysterious third voice on the chorus, before ending with Tyler singing the outro. Nine years ago, A$AP and Tyler gave us “Potato Salad”; now they’ve served us surf and turf, we can’t say they’re not dedicated to keeping us fed.
There have been rumours circulating that LA legend Thundercat was involved in this project for a few weeks. At the start of the month, it was confirmed when fans recognised his vocals on “Punk Rocky”. Last week, he appeared in A$AP’s self-directed music video for the single alongside Winona Ryder, Danny Elfman and A$AP Nast. But it seems that track is not his only feature on the album. On track six, “Playa”, Thundercat is credited as both a writer and background vocals. Sonically, the song feels like a nice reminder that even when he’s experimenting with sounds we’ve never heard from him before, A$AP can still deliver that Pretty Flocka flow that we know and love.
As one of the standouts so far on the album, “Stay Here 4 Life” opens with Brent Faiyaz’s vocals singing “Look at the sky / I wish that I could stay here for life”. A soft landing before getting to some of the more hardcore songs on the project, it’s reflective and makes some direct mentions to his relationship with Rihanna (“let’s mate and have a few kids / Truth is I just got struck by cupid, let’s make this shit exclusive”). Four minutes into the song, we get hit with a transcendental beat switch, and by the last minute, you feel like you’ve listened to three different songs. Bonus points to Rocky for that “Mewtwo” by Ken Carson sample, which is bound to make the song a fan favourite. Faiyaz’s backing vocals also seem to appear again on the title track “Don’t Be Dumb/Trip Baby”.
Think Bonnie and Clyde but it’s A$AP Rocky and Doechii rapping over smooth jazz. That’s exactly what you get on “Robbery”, which, as one X user pointed out, “felt like I was inside an old 1930s bar… so it’s a hit I fear”. The soothing juxtaposition of this track acts as a tonic to the frenzy of those like “Air Force (Black Demarco)” and “STFU”. Turns out, A$AP is a longtime jazz listener, previously citing the likes of Cab Calloway, Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington – who he samples on “Robbery” – as inspirations of his. As he recently explained: “I actually listen to jazz music when I work out, train in the gym and go on runs. I wanna see more young people get into jazz, real jazzy cat daddy swag.” The track also delivers a call-and-response style flow between the two rappers, similar to Doechii’s theatrical 2024 hit “Denial Is a River”.
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