Like the best of us, ASAP Rocky wears sunglasses indoors, even when speaking with Trevor Noah in front of Comedy Central cameras.
On Thursday's Daily Show, Rocky joined Noah to talk everything from TESTING to the mysterious AWGE collective. "To me it seems like this year especially, 2018 hip-hop, all the pros and vets, everybody's been dropping albums and they've all been good," Rocky said when asked why he chose this year to hit fans with the At.Long.Last.ASAP follow-up. In the past, Rocky added, "a lot" of the artists he grew up loving would eventually get "quiet for a minute." But not this year. "Everybody [made] an album," he said, throwing in a Kanye West shoutout.
When asked what he thinks defines the modern New York sound, Rocky largely disagreed that there was a clear-cut aesthetic to any particular region these days. "I think everything is just a big melting pot, especially America, right?" he said. "It's hard to even identify somebody's region from the way they rap. I don't really think anybody stands out, even though there's a few artists who have like this distinguished New York sound. But yeah, for the most part, everybody's music sounds dynamical and, you know, just similar to the other person's in some way. Not to diss anybody."
Speaking of disses, Rocky also briefly addressed his recent lyrical mockery of so-called mumble rap. "I love certain mumble rappers," he said. "It's, like, kinda oversaturated. Shoutouts Lil Uzi and Playboi Carti all day, man. Rockstars."
Finally, near the end of their seven-minute discussion, Noah got Rocky to elaborate a bit on the goals of his AWGE collective. "AWGE is a collective of young creatives from artists to musical artists," he said. "I think we all get together and kinda mastermind how we wanna take over, manipulate, or change the aesthetic and the way things are in culture, music, film, fashion, and art. That's all we do.... We try to, like, rekindle that free spirit living."
Catch the full interview (which ends with some gifted exclusive shoes) below.
