A$AP Rocky Shut Down Soho With His Vlone Riot Rave (With First-Hand Updates)

Rapper A$AP Rocky causes a disturbance in Soho NYC, with the announcement of his new video.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

As if New York City did not have enough excitement going on because of the Super Bowl, rapper A$AP Rocky threw what is being called the "VLone Riot Rave."

The meet happened today a little after 3 p.m., with the purpose being to announce the release of his new instrumental album, and the video for the first single off the album, which is titled "Riot Rave," and drops later this month.

A flash mob of A$AP fans flooded the intersection of Broadway and Houston Street in the Soho section of Manhattan, dressed in VLone (the clothing line designed by A$AP Bari). VLone will be dropping a full line of clothing in the coming months and we will keep you posted and update you as news rolls in. 

UPDATE: 

A source who was on the ground filled us in with more details on the "VLone Riot Rave." As the crowd gathered in Soho based off of Tweets they had seen, mainly from Ian Connor, police arrived and started asking people in the crowd what, exactly, was going on. No one answered. 

The crowd swelled to over 100 people, and slightly before 4 p.m., A$AP Rocky arrived in a black SUV. He started addressing the crowd, and explained that everyone here today was going to make a change. He also told someone to “put away the fucking camera," when someone tried to snap a pic. But he told the crowd that anyone who wanted to participate would be included in a video shoot.

The large gathering re-located and then was split up in to three groups of approximately 30 people each, and every group was assigned a different location. Before splitting up, Rocky addressed the crowd again. He announced that this project "was for weird kids," and that “it didn’t matter if you were gay or straight or weird.” Rocky then started handing out VLone hoodies to members in the group.

With that, the groups split up and started heading toward their assigned locations. According to the source, groups remained disciplined and self-organizing for a good while, until one person in the group of approximately 30 to 50 people knocked over a traffic barrier, which prompted the beginnings of the "Rave Riot." The group started sprinting through the streets, knocking signs over and kicking bags of garbage piled up along the street. As the group sprinted through Soho and the Lower East Side, people were screaming "A-SAP" at the tops of their lungs.

Latest in Style