The Harlem-born rapper Rakim Mayers, also known as A$AP Rocky, recently released his third album, At.Long.Last.A$AP. This album is titled similarly to his previous two projects, Live.Love.A$AP and Long.Live.A$AP. The album was originally expected to release on June 2, but ASAP Rocky decided to change the release date to May 26 after the album was leaked online.

A.L.L.A. features some of the biggest names in hip-hop, including Future, M.I.A., Schoolboy Q, Kanye West, Juicy J, Lil Wayne, Rod Stewart, Miguel and many more.

The death of A$AP Yams, Rocky’s advisor and longtime friend, greatly affected the making of the album. Yams executively produced the album and was the inspiration for the album’s cover artwork.

After taking a two year break, Rocky released a single from the album, “Lord Pretty Flacko Jodye 2 (LPFJ2)”, on January 7, 2015. The music video for the song was produced by Rocky himself. Rocky premiered a track called “M’s” in an interview with the Red Bull Music Academy. On the album, a remixed version includes a verse from New Orleans rapper, Lil Wayne. Rocky then released the album’s second single, titled “Everyday”, featuring Rod Stewart, Miguel and Mark Ronson.

On May 19, 2015, Rocky released a music video for a song titled “L$D”, which had tons of positive feedback, receiving over four million views on YouTube. The video shows Rocky wandering through the streets of Tokyo, Japan. The slow tempo track is nicely paired with a very vivid and psychedelic music video. Halfway through the video, Rocky previews the first verse of “Excuse Me” as a sneak peak to the album.

“Last time I was more concerned, subconsciously, with doing something mainstream,” Rocky said in a recent Rolling Stones interview. “Once I did that, I not only proved to the world but to myself that I could do anything that I wanted.”

With 18 songs on the album, A.L.L.A. contains many slowed down songs but still delivers more hardcore rap and lyricism than Rocky’s previous albums. “I always been in that direction, I just got slept on. My swag overshadowed everything. I’m tired of [expletive] like, ‘What is he gonna wear, some wack [expletive]?’ or something. I hope they’re watching.”

The intro to the album, “Holy Ghost,” starts off with a quote from “O Brother, Where Art Thou” and contains several religious representations. The theme of the song is about selling one’s soul to the Devil while trying to succeed in life at the same time. Rocky closes the song by begging the Holy Ghost to help him.

The fifth track of the album, “Excuse Me,” was leaked as Rocky plays the first verse in the “L$D” music video. Rocky starts off the song by saying “Wealth is in the mind and not the body,” inspired by Pharrell Williams; this was a slogan for him back from his debut album. In this track, Rocky describes life filled with plenty of hustling, expensive purchases and paying dues. The slowed down beat, produced by Rocky himself, shows his subdued swagger.

Overall this was a great album with terrific production, exuberant flows and excellent features. Rocky exhibits characteristics of vintage Lupe Fiasco, East Coast hip-hop and trap rap all in one album. One thing that Rocky didn’t excel at is consistency. He couldn’t regularly drop a first-class song, track after track, which is difficult to do on an 18 track album. Rating 8.7/10