In the April/May issue of Complex, cover star A$AP Rocky talks about his love life, his new, hotly-anticipated album, At.Long.Last.A$AP, the tragic passing of A$AP Yams and, most importantly for our line of work, Hood By Air and Been Trill. He quickly explained the legendary diss on "Multiply" in an on the spot interview with The Cut awhile back, but our own Joe La Puma pressed him because #journalism.
Rocky thinks that a lot of people didn't care when he fired shots at HBA on "Multiply." Meanwhile, some kids took to straight up burning their HBA and Been Trill on the back of the comments. I think it's pretty safe to say that a bunch of people actually care what Rocky says about fashion, whether or not he wants to admit it. At the core of the beef is the fact that Rocky believes the dissed brands in question "didn't respect" his shit. In his own words:
The people behind the brands didn’t acknowledge me as a pioneer because I didn’t sit down and create the name Hood by Air with Shayne [Oliver]. I’m taking full credit for that brand, for anyone knowing anything. Yes. I’m taking credit for that. I liked it when I was way younger. It had a little run here and there, but nobody ever really kicked it off. I knew Shayne on a personal note. I was like: “Yo, let’s bring this shit back.” It took me years. Shayne’s stubborn. He’d give me a sweater one year, a T-shirt one year. It was like that. I have a lot of shit from back in the day, and I’d say after “Peso”—because we have Hood by Air in the “Peso” video—by the time it hit 2012, 2013, he was ready. Because I was out there in the field. I just made that shit look jiggy.
Without knowing the full story behind the scenes, it's hard to parse through exactly what he's implying. There's obviously more to this story than we'll probably ever hear unfortunately. But one things for damn sure, when it comes to Been Trill, "Come on, with the Been Trill. Don't even get me started because you know. People want me to answer questions they know the answer to. There’s nothing to talk about."
