On May 15th, 2018 A$AP Rocky released his latest studio album TESTING, which gained mixed reviews from critics and put A$AP Rocky’s supposed talent as an artist into jeopardy . It has been seven years since the release, and all of the decisions A$AP Rocky has made regarding his music career have only hurt the critically acclaimed discography that once shaped the landscape of rap.
Before a performance in 2022, A$AP Rocky said that his newest album was finished and DON’T BE DUMB would be the name of the project. This project has been in limbo ever since, alienating his casual fans and causing most of his hardcore fans to turn on him, due to consistent lies and backtracking. That same year at Rolling Loud, A$AP Rocky performed a set. All of the marketing towards this performance was advertised as his ‘last performance before the album,’ but even months later, no album was mentioned or released by Rocky.
His strategy to keep the hype that was left from that point forward was to drop underwhelming singles like SAME PROBLEMS and RIOT. These singles did not break the glass and reintroduce hype into this rollout, but they did introduce an aesthetic to this new album, which gave diehard A$AP fans hope for the time being. While A$AP Rocky was dropping these singles, he was also slowly building a name for himself in fashion using his “AWGE” brand, which seemed to pique his interest more than dropping any music. During the Drake and Kendrick beef on the song “FAMILY MATTERS,” Drake called out Rocky for slowly abandoning his music career and putting more time and effort into fashion as he rapped the lines “I ain’t even know you rapped still / ‘Cause they only talkin’ ’bout your ‘fit again.” These verses showcase what a lot of A$AP fans were thinking about at this point because, even though A$AP Rocky had poured more time and effort into his AWGE clothing brand, it had yet to have an impact on the culture his old albums, such as LIVE LOVE A$AP did.
When all hope of the album ever coming out was almost lost, A$AP Rocky, in the late summer of 2024, revealed that the album would be dropping on August 30th of that year. Rocky fans who had stuck around at that point were very happy upon hearing this news, but it did not create enough hype around the album for non-A$AP Rocky fans to be aware that the album was dropping. As the days counted down in August, it seemed as if no one cared that this album was coming. Most discourse surrounding the album was people discussing if he still had the kind of star power to drop an album that would not flop compared to his previous work.
When the release date of August 30th finally came, fans were not met with an album; instead, they were met with a Tweet talking about how a song that leaked a year prior ruined the release of the album, and how they were going to have to wait even longer. Attached to this Tweet was the leaked song and its music video, which was later nominated for a Grammy, but this had to have been the single worst move he could have made for this album. He should have kept the hype alive prior to August 2024, so that he could have dropped the album when he promised. With no album to listen to, A$AP Rocky fans, instead of being outraged that they had been lied to again, slowly stopped caring and chose to enjoy his old music. They started to act as if he had retired.
One possible reason fans thought of for the album not dropping was a pending trial that begain In early 2025, Where A$AP Rocky had to attend a trial where he was accused of attempting murder on another member of the A$AP collective, A$AP Reli. During this trial, all eyes were on Rocky, wondering if he was going to have to leave everything that he had built behind to serve 20 plus years in jail if he was given the maximum sentencing. On February 18th of that year, he was declared not guilty on all charges against him. After this occurred, it would have been the perfect opportunity to drop the album, since all of his friends in the industry were celebrating the not-guilty verdict online. However, he once again went radio silent, and the hype died down.
After several more months of nothing, he finally announced that he would be dropping a new single called PRAY$DAGANG, which would be an Apple Music exclusive. When the song was released on Apple Music, it did not even make it to the Top 200 charts, and the music video that was released with the song was deleted hours after it went public on YouTube. With the deletion of the music video, it seems like he finally gets the message that his fans are tired, and that not releasing the album has pretty much killed his career going forward. If he drops the album it will most likely flop, but if he does not drop it he will continue to lose fans, putting him in a slippery situation going forward.
