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Wassup, A$AP

New stuff | Posted January 20, 2012 | Comments / 1

Andy Capper, VICE's global editor in chief, recently co-directed A$AP Rocky's new music video for "Wassup"—an ode to Harlem, 40s, OG Kush, and gold teeth—which is premiering on VICE today. To celebrate that, and partly to revel in how fucking amazing the Harlem rapper and his A$AP Mob are, here are some choice things that nearly made us give up following established fashion magazines and blogs, in lieu of just taking all our style inspiration solely from a 23-year-old perma-stoned MC.

COMME DES FUCKDOWN

As soon as we saw the phenomenal A$AP Playlist Manifested shoot with A$AP Mob's Ty Beats wearing the Comme Des Fuckdown snapback, we blew our shit like a gaggle of tweenage girls lusting after Robert Pattinson's used hankerchief. That cap was everything we'd ever wanted, all wrapped up into a stylish, satirical package, but no amount of Google Image searching, forum posting, or on-our-knees praying could lead us to it. Turns out it came from here, which is something we really could have done with knowing before we publicly embarrassed ourselves like that.

TWO CAPS

Name me one person other than Rocky who can wear two caps at the same time—one forwards, one backwards—without looking like a complete tool. Stumped? Thought so.

ALL HIS LYRICS

When Rocky refers to clothing companies in his bars, it doesn't involve bragging about buying man bags from Italian status brands, which is a refreshing change from most of the vulgar parading of wealth we're used to in modern hip-hop. It's not like what he's rocking is cheap—"Raf Simons, Rick Owens, usually what I'm dressed in,"—but at least the guy knows what to spend his cash on and doesn't explicitly make the point that it costs more than your house.

THE ALL BLACK UNIFORM

The fashion kid doctrine of wearing exclusively all black got brain-meltingly dull about ten lifetimes ago, but when the A$AP Mob do it—and being that it's kind of their trademark, they do it so often—it's somehow exciting again. Maybe it's because they wear stuff like hoodies from uber-exclusive French brand Pigalle and Y-3 leather jackets, rather than doing the played out "flouncy, thin black material draped all over yourself" thing.

ONLY ROSE GOLD, NO DIAMONDS

Like Rocky, you know you've got your bling game on lock when you're flat out rejecting diamonds so you can keep to a strict regime of rose gold. Sure, you might not have as much money as the idiots who get their teeth replaced with diamonds, but you've got an important thing called taste and know how to dial back the obnoxiousness enough to make sure you look dope.

GREAT TASTE IN GIRLS

Unlike most rappers, who keep a harem of badly-dressed honeys on reserve for public appearances and music videos, A$AP hangs with green-haired dykes like Venus. Her club night Ghe20 Goth1k is a weird mad mix of young thugs in black listening to syrupy hip-hop and witch house, mind-blowingly beautiful girls, and guys you just cannot believe are gay, even though they have impeccable style. Ghe20 Goth1k is probably the most fashion club on Earth, right now.

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