Get to Know Joe Fox, A$AP Rocky's New Protégé

Where did the kid who's all over A$AP Rocky's new album come from?

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Image via Complex Original
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When A$AP Rocky revealed the tracklist for his sophomore album, A.L.L.A., somehow the most interesting news wasn't a Kanye West feature, nor UGK or even the elusive Mos Def. Nope, all of those marquee, beyond-standard-fare guests were overshadowed by the name Joe Fox, which appeared a whopping five times across the 18 tracks. You may have seen it and ran to your nearest corner store music blog, thinking you missed something. But we were all asking the very same question: What the hell is a Joe Fox? Is he a new member of the Mob? A new guy on the rap scene? An alias for guest narrator Jaden Smith? A bare bones search result via Google only fueled the mystery's fire, although his Twitter and Instagram profiles were easily found. Fox appears on roughly a third of the album, tackling hooks with Rocky ("Holy Ghost," "Pharsyde," "Max B") and sharing the bill with bigger feature names like Future and M.I.A., and Yeezus himself on "Fine Whine" and "Jukebox Joints." And yet, he's still very much an enigma. Between his two social accounts, a very rare interview given to i-D, and a brief mention in British GQ, here are all the pertinent facts you need to know about Pretty Flacko's new protégé.

 

He literally randomly met A$AP Rocky on the street.

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He had no idea who Rocky was.

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His whole steez is a throwback.

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His influences are the likes of Bob Dylan and John Lennon. His yearning for that era of music is much stronger than his opinion of what today's landscape has to offer. As he said to i-D, "I feel like music isn't that big of a deal to our generation. It's not like in the sixties and seventies where people lived and died by their artists...Music is a career now for people; people just want to be rich and famous." (He's also much more interested in roaming around outside and meeting new people than engaging in and with modern pop culture.) This would seem to indicate that when he drops his own project (expected in 2016) the sound itself will be in line with this image, skewing toward a sound similar to that of his influences. Given Flacko's desire to branch his sound out, it would seem like their union was, incidentally, a perfect match. Is Joe about to be the male Amy Winehouse?

*Here's one modern record he seems to appreciate*

Ian Connor welcomed him to the squad.

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He's basically Rocky's protege these days, so much so that they live together.

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Here's a preview of what he has in store.

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