Bryan Leach had a sit down with XXL Mag and goes over everything A$AP Rocky. I was feeling Bryan saying that “Rocky is an old school artist.” That’s exactly where I would classify him. I think it’s why I’m off him right now. Throwback feeling. On another note, Bryan tells XXL that A$AP was basically skeptical of signing. He mentions that Rocky made him promise to do something for him if he signed. Because “Rocky’s an old school artist he doesn’t sign to labels he signs to people,” Bryan says, “If you can promise me that you’ll be as hands-on as you are now always, then we might be able to do something. It was important for me to be really hands-on and making sure that nothing got thrown to some big department or some big group of so-called experts, or shit like that.” Respect. As long as A$AP keeps making the music that I want to hear I’m good. Drop down bottom for more.
Were you surprised at all that “Goldie” didn’t pick up more?
I was and I wasn’t. I was because I thought that, even if you play the instrumental, there’s no way you can’t rock to that. If you a real A$AP Rocky fan, and you think about it, that was the first real record that he did that had any tempo to it. In terms of having a record that could work in the clubs, and work with hip-hop purists, we felt that that record did a good job of balancing that out. But I felt like, some things, people just aren’t ready. Some things are about the timing. So I was surprised, but I wasn’t surprised, because I think people are fed so much generic shit nowadays that it’s not easy to get them to focus on something that’s real.
It kind of worked in the opposite way with “Fuckin’ Problems,” because that was a record where some people may have thought we cheated. Getting a bunch of superstar artists on it, getting a big producer to produce it, follow kind of what you might think is predictable. But we were okay with that because it was natural. He has a personal relationship with Drake; Drake was a big part of his career, even from the beginning, prior to even signing. Kendrick Lamar and him, same thing; TDE and A$AP have their own relationship. And they were all part of Drake’s Club Paradise Tour. We felt comfortable putting out that record, but sometimes people need to have things more easily digestible before they can really see it for what it is. Every artist went through that.
