A$AP Rocky reveals reason behind album delay
While 2024 has seen several excellent albums released, one of the most highly-anticipated has been the fourth A$AP Rocky record, Don’t Be Dumb. The New Yorker is one of the most influential rappers of this century, and it says it all that he’s reached such heights with such a small oeuvre.
2024 has been a significant year for rap, marked out by the ongoing feud between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, and it is set to have another historic highlight in Don’t Be Dumb. On June 21st this year, during Paris Fashion Week, Rocky previewed three unreleased tracks during his AWGE collection show. After the presentation concluded, a pre-save link went live, which revealed the album title and the August 30th release date.
Earlier this month, when speaking to Zane Lowe, Rocky revealed more about the new album. He discussed a forthcoming track called ‘Hood Happy’, which features a strange all-star cast of Busta Rhymes, Flavor Flav, Slick Rick, and most surprisingly of all, Fatman Scoop and Morrissey.
Despite the excitement for the fourth Rocky album, he has now pushed the album release back from August 30th to sometime in the fall of this year. Following much speculation concerning the reasoning, Rocky took to X and explained his motivations behind the delay.
“LEAKS & SAMPLE CLEARANCES ARE DISRUPTING THE ALBUM,” Rocky captioned a retweet of a piece mentioning his delay. “ITS BEEN 6 YEARS & I WANNA MAKE THE BEST ALBUM EVER. IM SORRY FOR THE WAIT.”
While Rocky maintains that the delay is in the best interest of the record’s quality, and has also created more demand for it whenever it does arrive, fans do have a series of singles to enjoy in the meantime. This includes ‘Riot (Rowdy Pipe’n)’ as well as the most recent release, ‘Highjack’, which features a surprise appearance from San Francisco folk heroine Jessica Pratt.
In other ASAP Rocky news, DJ Kast One recently appeared on Hot 97, and claimed that the New Yorker disses Drake all over Don’t Be Dumb. This apparently includes ‘Highjack’, which features the line: “These ni**as want my wife bad, the people want my next track”, seemingly pertaining to Rocky’s partner Rihanna, who’s also had a relationship with Drake in the past.
Rocky himself has discussed his Drake feud in a new interview with Billboard. “You got to realize, certain n***as was throwing shots for years,” he said. “I ain’t in the middle of that s**t. That’s not how I retaliate right now. I got bigger fish to fry than some p***y boys. It is real beef outside. It is real. N***as getting really clipped and blitzed every day. N***as sniping n***as every day. That little kitty s**t ain’t about nothing.”