A$AP Ferg on How the New Rock Stars Are Rappers (and Why He Doesn’t Hang Out with Them)
Once known mostly as A$AP Rocky’s stylish and raucous running mate, A$AP Ferg has spent the past several years carving out his own territory as an artist: bombastic and emotional, confessional, a little disrespectful. He’s a curious and restless musician who also, when he feels like it, will make a song like “New Level,” with Future, that could destroy a whole city skyline. In person, he has a round, friendly face, and today—reclining on a couch in a photo studio on the west side of Manhattan—red leather pants. Last August, he released a galvanizing mixtape, Still Striving. But he’s already working on the next thing. “I’m rapping like I’ve never rapped before,” he says. “Pushing myself as an artist to make better art. And just try to make more effective art. Art with intention.”
GQ: Intention?
A$AP Ferg: Intention—meaning, I’m not just saying something to say it. Like, what’s the intention? After people listen to my music, what do I want them to walk away with?
Have you ever said something just to say it?
Yeah. I feel like all rappers have. I feel like every rapper killed a million people in their raps. I’ve never killed anybody. You have a short time here on this earth, and you want to make the biggest impact you can, and that’s what I’m looking at. I’m looking at longevity. I’m looking at how long I want my songs to last.
Does that desire for longevity conflict with the desire of the music industry to always have something new?
I don’t feel like we should follow the week-to-week schedule of album releases. That’s people problems. We’re humans, we’re not machines just making new chips, or machines creating some fucking shit that’s not organic. And if you are an artist who’s trying to do that, it’s not going to last too long. It’s microwaved. So I’m not in the business of creating microwaved music. I could, but it wouldn’t be in my best interests. Everybody wants more music, because that’s a payday for everybody. That’s a payday for me! But I never really wanted to compromise my art. Even though I may have compromised it, just by being young—
What do you mean by that?
I mean tour with certain people, or working with certain artists. Your booking agent will tell you it’ll be good if you go grab some of their audience. As a kid who doesn’t really know the business, you’re not thinking about all of that. You’re just thinking, “Okay, this dude may have my best interests in mind. He’s working with me. He’s my partner. We’re going to make a lot of money together.” But if the shit don’t feel right at the beginning, it’s never going to feel right. It’s like when you take a picture and you know your face wasn’t looking that good in that picture, you’re going to have to live with that shit on Google for the rest of your life. You know what I’m saying? So I don’t take bad pictures anymore.
That seems exhausting.
You gotta be on all the time. You have to be on 24/7. Even when I’m having dinner with my mom, and I just want to be a son for a few hours, to the fans and people I’m still A$AP Ferg. So if they want a picture, they want a picture. The artist is one part of you. Like everybody thinks I take hella drugs, just because of the aggressive part of me. But I’m completely different from that.
I think people would be surprised to learn that!
I'm very sober. I don't smoke, I don't drink. I drink sometimes. I've hit the blunt before. But my high is making music and figuring out new ways to make money. And [it] ain't even about the money no more. Before that was fun, figuring out new ways to make money. That just comes now. With a brand, that comes.
How does money come, exactly?
Money just comes different ways. You do sponsorships. I've got sneaker deals with Adidas now. And merchandise, me designing. But it's all stuff I love. I went to art and design high school—I was drawing and painting before I even made music. I would listen to music. But I knew how to draw before I was able to put a song together. So the fact that I'm able to have a base that I can kind of launch things off of is beautiful for me. And I have all these different people coming to me with ideas that are already in my head, just because they can see it in my brand. Like, “Oh, I can see you doing this.” You can see me doing this because I already insinuated that I'm into that.
What do you make of the current state of pop music?
When I think about pop music, I think about hip-hop music. I feel like Young Thug is the new pop star. Lil Uzi [Vert] is definitely the new pop star. Like, he’s definitely the new Blink-182. And I don’t think it’s weird! It’s just the progression of hip-hop. Hip-hop just became the monster that it was always supposed to be. I think hip-hop started off embracing all cultures anyway. Hip-hop started off with Kraftwerk—Kraftwerk making sounds and drums and beats, something to feel. We didn’t know what that shit was, but people liked it, and they danced to it. And then the DJ said, “Oh, we can just loop this part of the beat and make a breakbeat?” People started breakdancing to it, and then you have a song like “Planet Rock,” which was sampled from Kraftwerk, which became hip-hop—the culture, the dancing. So we already embraced rock—Aerosmith and Run-DMC. We embraced electronic music, with Kraftwerk. We embraced soul music: James Brown. We embraced the Funkadelics, with George Clinton, and G-Funk, which Dr. Dre was creating in the beginning, with The Chronic and all of that. Doggystyle. We embraced all types of music, so it’s no wonder that we’re the new pop stars. And the new rock stars.
Is there someone specific who you look at as paving the way for you to become a pop star?
I think Puff was the Berry Gordy of his time. He was like, all right, “We don’t have a Berry Gordy who’s going to represent our type of music. I want to create my own Motown, which is Bad Boy.” And he did that. And then there’s an evolution that happens after that. We had to see Puff to know what we could do better, or know what’s possible. To see Puff in shoots with Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell and things like that, or when Big Daddy Kane did the naked shoot with Madonna and Naomi Campbell—we had to see what was possible as a rapper. We never saw a rapper do that!
What’s the next step in that progression?
I feel like there are a lot of artists making the same kind of music. I feel like we haven’t pushed hip-hop sonically. All you hear on radio right now is trap music—just big heavy drums, didididididi didididuh, with the same flow—it’s starting to sound like one big reggaeton song to me. All the songs sound the same. We’re not pushing the culture forward with new sonics. That’s why I love the new kids—like X[XXTentacion], his album is crazy. The music that’s on his album is the music he’s really into. Even my bros, like Rocky and ScHoolboy Q and Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole—the musicality of it all is what I’m into.
What records do you like right now?
I'm listening to a lot of R&B lately. I haven't been listening to rap music. I don't get inspired by rappers. I don't like the way rappers dress. I don't like the way they act. I don't like the way rappers do anything. I respect that they come up to better themselves and better people that's around them. I respect that. But my opinion is I don't get inspired by looking at another rapper's outfit, or being around a bunch of other rappers. I fucking hate that shit. I'm around regular people. I like being around family and my friends. And they're not rappers. They're artists, people like that. I don't want to be around no rappers. Rappers can't teach me nothing. Only rapper that can teach me something is probably Jay-Z. But I'm not pressed to be around no rappers. I don't think J. Cole is hanging out with a bunch of rappers, or Kendrick Lamar is hanging out with a bunch of rappers, because they're not going to learn anything from them.
So where do you go to learn?
You got to go live life. Go live in the world. Sit by yourself and question yourself about a lot of things. It's vital and important for you to take time out for yourself. Vacation time or time for your family. Just like when you put in days for work, like you got to fly here, you got to do this show, this, that—that's work. That's not living life. That's just working. What about living life? You gotta do the same thing. You need to just put life on your schedule. "Live life." Block out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and maybe the next week. To live a little bit. Life ain't just rap.
