blacked

4y

Rocky doesn’t want to be anything that we want him to be. He has to get some type of joy out of being such a contrarian, or maybe he’s just chilling cause he gets free clothes for life and can call up riri whenever he wants

safe

4y

Little bored so I wanted to write up something about how I think A$AP Rocky can have a successful release with his 4th album and push himself back into cultural relevance

More and more artists are finding ways to get their old tapes onto streaming services. Live.Love is an absolute classic and is long overdue on streaming services.

Despite the lack of a streaming release it has remained possibly the most relevant of his first 3 projects even though it released the earliest. It is easily his highest rated album on both Metacritic and RYM.

Rocky should start the rollout by putting this onto streaming services. It brings his name back into the limelight in the best way possible by banking on nostalgia and past love. Additionally there are songs that have leaked that didn’t end up on the project. Take this song for example.

Rocky should find 3-4 songs to add to the streaming release as a deluxe version. This will help it to have an even larger initial appeal beyond just the factor of getting it on streaming. Fans will go listen again and be reminded of what a great project it is.

Rocky has consistently had serious pop culture appeal. He’s toed into fashion, he’s built a reputation for his looks, he’s dated celebrities and he’s done interviews at Oxford. He needs to embrace this appeal prior to a single release. What would this look like?

Any of the following:

• Announcing him and Rihanna’s relationship
• Beef/Fake beef with Drake over Rihanna
• Large scale fashion collabs
• Talking about Trump/Sweden in some sort of tell-all interview

Rocky also needs to find a way to appeal to the younger generation. He does an ok job of this but he’s failed to capitalize properly on past successes in this regard. What does this look like?

Any of the following:

• Starting and using a TikTok in a unique way
• Doing something like starting an OnlyFans
• Features with people like Uzi, Carti, Travis
• Through these he needs to be capturing a more ‘street’ audience

He needs a good single choice. Preferably a single that will have mainstream appeal rather than core fanbase appeal. His core fanbase will listen either way. He needs to get a single that will reach soccer mom crowd. An option here is to get a feature from someone like The Weeknd but I would suggest a solo single or an artist like Cardi, Meg or Rihanna who shares a poppier crowd. Rihanna for example has an enormous amount of thirst for new music. Embracing pop rap and a Rihanna hook would result in an instant success.

Rocky also has immense success in terms of videos. He needs to come out with a video first week – preferably of great quality and done by AWGE. This boosts the song massively chart wise first week.

He also needs the label to pitch in for playlist placement, press coverage and an airplay deal. He needs to hit the first two weeks hard and get the song into the top 10-20 range.

Rocky’s fanbase right now is very in line with someone like Tyler. Potato Salad was enormously successful despite the lack of a streaming release and despite it being a song that doesn’t adhere to typical commercial standards. Rocky needs to make sure he’s also capturing this ‘art hoe’ crowd and a Tyler x Rocky collab is instantly hyped up. This song should also be pushed on TikTok given the crossover of the crowd. Personally I’d make this song an interpolation or cover of a 90s classic. These songs do well on the TikTok platform and two major artists like Rocky and Tyler could put a unique spin on a classic.

Press and TV isn’t dead. Rocky should hit it all. He failed to do this in testing and needs to get his name back out to the older whiter crowds who populate these spaces. Places like SNL, Jimmy Fallon etc. Assuming the lead single is heavily pop, he should be able to play that song in a number of places and award shows.

Testing failed because it failed to commit to a sound. Rocky can have a mix of sounds on the project but it needs to be more cohesive than Testing was. He’s also said he’s scared of hits and commercial music. This is stupid. Rocky has found some of his best critical success with his more commercial work. For the album to succeed people need to like it and people like commercial cohesive music.

Rocky has his toes in a number of pots right now. If he’s smart he can make all of those crowds check out the album. It’s a no-brainer for Rocky to start with a superstar feature. Even if Rihanna is on the single, Rocky has a number of other stars he has a history with. A Drake feature or a Kendrick feature would be a great choice on the album. He also tends to have access to Frank Ocean features that no one else can get. This makes sense too. He wants to pick features that have strong core fanbases and who are rare with features. It sounds like a KTT wet dream but he can capture the mainstream with a Drake feature, forums with a Kanye or Frank feature, RnB crowds and Twitter with something like a Summer Walker feature, UK rap with another Skepta feature, younger crowds with a Lil Baby feature and then indie crowds with a Lana Del Rey feature. He should also think about a Nicki feature. His goal should be to drive fanbases to the album to hear the song their artist features on and then stay for the album.

What do y’all think? I can’t see an album that does this successfully selling less than around 250k which is a massive improvement from Testing. What would you do?

Monky business

4y

@op how much impact do you think these tv appearances really have? I have always been conflicted on this and I lean to the crowd that they don't really have any impact outside of maybe getting you trending on twitter for an hour

safe

4y

he objectively fell off sales wise
testing rollout was one of the dumbest rollouts ive ever witnessed

Childhood

4y

Yes, but the only ones who is paying attention to the "TESTING rollout" is just KTT and other random internet kids.

To title your thread under the guise of Rocky needing to "re-enter relevance" is literally a ploy for these guys and these guys only because the large public perception of that is not what WE perceive.

Unforgivable

4y

I honestly doubt Rocky even cares anymore about replicating his 2011-2013 hype, his fanbase is pretty much cult like now

Unforgivable

4y

Oh and Live.Love never dropping on streaming services because Rakim obviously doesn't want a huge lawsuit on his ass because of unpaid sample clearances

Mitch Baker

4y

“Fake beef with Drake over Rihanna“

get a load of this guy!

Mesaih

4y

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