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From there, he connected with A$AP Rocky by way of the infamous A$AP Yams Tumblr (more on that in our interview below), and the rest is history (or rather, it's detailed in our interview below). The producer, who is known for his soothing, ethereal beats that often include otherworldly samples, first gained notoriety after producing with Lil B The Based God (another hero of the 2010-2011 era). Getting into why we are all here, Clams Casino rose to prominence around the same time as A$AP Rocky, if not slightly before.
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Who knows where we would all be without Rocky?Īmong the people more directly affected by the A$AP effect: Clams Casino. It allowed us to grow $AP was the very first "review" we at HNHH ever put out- I use the word "review" very loosely, and cringe as I re-read it presently, but it's still an important facet in our own website's evolution. It breathed new life into rap's blogosphere, as he was someone to write about, to dissect, to analyze. $AP isn't only a nostalgic glimpse into the not-so-distant hip-hop past it's also a body of work that certified A$AP Rocky position in the rap game made him an artist to watch alongside fellow rising artists at the time, like Drake, J. Despite the fact that it was branded and released as a mixtape, it still contained original production, a nod to the shift in how rappers approached their mixtapes during this time of change - moving from a heavily freestyle-based format, where all beats would have been recycled, to creating the need for original production, and even strong features, across any "mixtape." Combine this with the rise of DSPs, and, as we've seen present-day, it's becomes increasingly difficult to truly tell a "mixtape" and an "album" apart, save for the artist's diction. Nonetheless, when $AP arrived, we were still in "mixtape mode," and the project was thus fully-downloadable, no DSP required. It was the beginning of a transformation for all the blogs that feverishly covered rap and hip-hop, including HNHH, as the streaming service boom arrived shortly thereafter, forcing many blogs to re-think their format. It was a time when the blogosphere was still dominant, but yet also, on its decline. It's of personal interest to me, as the release was among the first major mixtapes to drop very shortly after I started working at HNHH (!). Whereas A$AP Rocky's debut singles found success as music videos on YouTube, these days we're also seeing this type of success happen on platforms like TikTok.Īs far as $AP's release ten years ago: it's also a snapshot into a changing music industry and online landscape. It also set a precedent, one which remains popular in the music business to this day - that is, artists getting signed off their first viral hit, whatever hit that might be, and wherever it might have gone viral. As we discuss in the interview with Rocky's producer Clams Casino below, the idea of an almost-entirely-unknown artist getting such a massive record deal, prior to even releasing his debut mixtape that alone fostered anticipation and intrigue in the artist. There was also the fact that the then-23-year old managed to sign a $3 million RCA deal, basically off the strength of one viral song- this was simply unheard of, and the rap world immediately paid attention. The New York-bred artist had separated himself from the landscape at the time, by diving into a sound that was not common in NYC, indeed, it was heralded as Southern-inspired, and this alone was something to discuss and debate. Before the mixtape's release, A$AP Rocky had managed to build up, not only a lot of hype, but a lot of speculation- a lot of interest, in a word- early fans and curious hip-hop bystanders couldn't help but keenly watch his entrance into the rap game, led by singles such as "Purple Swag" and "Peso." There were a few reasons for why this was. Ten years ago, on October 31, 2011, A$AP Rocky made his debut with the release of his first mixtape, $AP. Clams Casino revisits the making of A$AP Rocky's "$AP" for an exclusive interview with HNHH.