A$AP Rocky sat down with Julie Adenuga of Beats 1 to discuss his album-making process on Testing. It's safe to say the Harlemite pulled out a Rorschach Mask when he created an eclectic space devoid of the familiar trappings. Many of his influences on the album are inherently traceable, but not as one complete unit, which he did so seamlessly.
"I kinda put myself in an avant-garde art space with just eclectic, artful music-making," Rocky said. "Especially in this day and age, none of my contemporaries or peers are making that kind of music. Nobody's fucking sounds like mine. I'm quite proud of that. I think it's a sound that I've been developing for the past couple of years. Moving forward, I just want to kinda, you know, perfect that sound more."
Rocky's avant-garde is inherently visible in the title itself. Testing is every part of Rocky savoring new ground, but not before he'd established himself off the generosity of others. That's the cycle of life, ask anybody worth their daily stipend how they went about their creative education. A formal education generally precedes artistic freedom, Rocky is no different.
When asked to to describe how he intends to push the envelope, A$AP Rocky mentioned merging genres together to create new ones: "Like I said, just merging gaps between trip-hop, American grime rap, road rap, trap music and shit like that, even French rap and whatnot." What do you make of his intention to go the direction of Avant-Gardism?
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