On Jan. 16, A$AP Rocky’s long-awaited, eight-year album “Don’t Be Dumb” finally came out. After releasing his last album, “TESTING”, in 2018, fans have been pining for another masterpiece that Rocky could give. Despite the wait, the album exceeded some fans’ standards yet left some feeling underwhelmed.

This album was produced by various artists, including Tyler, the Creator, Pharell Williams, Metro Boomin, Hit Boy and many other notable names he’s worked with before. With a 17-song tracklist and hour-long playtime, “Don’t Be Dumb” primarily blends main genres of hip-hop and R&B, while incorporating mixes of trap and indie rock alternatives.

With all of these producers, there were also a long list of collaborations. Some memorable features include Brent Faiyaz on “Stay Here 4 Life”, Doechii on “Robbery”, Damon Albarn and Westside Gunn on “Whiskey (Release Me)” and Tyler, The Creator and Jozzy on “Fish N Steak”. Spanning from genre to genre, song to song, all of these artists helped create an enjoyable album. 

“Don’t Be Dumb’s Rocky is the strongest album since his debut, buoyed by a sense of playfulness he seemed to have lost for a second,” The Guardian said.

When Rocky released the first single to the album, “PUNK ROCKY”, fans were surprised by his new motive. Even more so, the music video. When it was first released, everyone was shocked to see that actress Winona Ryder was starring in it. However, this wasn’t really an out of place choice to include her. Tim Burton had done the cover art for the album as she’s in almost every piece of work that Burton produces. Having her incorporated into the music video added much more liveliness and spunk.

Rocky also released another single for fans to swoon over: “HELICOPTER”. Compared to “Punk Rocky”, released earlier, the style was completely different. It had more of a head-bop feel to it, rather than a lighter, easy danceable feel.

Being provided the first snapshots into the album, it very much gave everything that we needed to know. Being almost every genre into one, including artistic graphics and Tim Burton’s usual filming style, it was sure to be said that “Don’t Be Dumb” was going to be a rollercoaster to listen to.

REVIEW

As I gave it a listen, I couldn’t help but realize how many different levels of elements that were in each song. As reported by the Guardian, some have said that “some songs feel phoned-in lyrically, and others feel overstuffed with production elements”. This album is very experimental. Almost every song was a different genre than the other, sometimes giving too much or just making me confused in general as to why it was even on the album.

“[A$AP] Rocky has had better years, he’s out of his prime and needs to stick to producing [the way] his other albums were,”  freshman Justin Magdaleno said.

Typically, I consider the music Rocky usually makes to be calmer, in a sense. With this album, however, there were too many components to each song that it took away from any lyric, as I was too focused on what I was hearing up front rather than fully understanding the song’s meaning. It felt extremely overstuffed and overwhelming.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed listening to it, the fun aspect was definitely there. But, going deeper and deeper into the album, I began to notice how out of place some songs were.

For instance, take a song like “Air Force (Black Demarco)”. It has a very fast paced flare, with a lot of loud elements. It transitions into, “Whiskey (Release Me)” which is a very slow song, with great flows and layered production, similar to his old music. Then, it jumps to “Robbery”, which is full of jazz with a very suggestive tone and interesting lyrics.There should be more of a consistent flow through of each song, I felt that it jumped from one genre to another in a blink of an eye.

“Don’t Be Dumb” is A$AP Rocky’s fifth consecutive album and fans are unsure if it’s worth the wait. From a standpoint, some songs are great. There is some production that is not too much, nor too little, but those songs get overthrown by the over-produced ones. All in all, this album is worth listening to at least once. Unfortunately, this first listen is all I needed from it.