A$AP Rocky: "Goldie"

On “Goldie” A$AP Rocky achieves a sustained, high-end delirium; if last year’s superlative LiveLoveA$AP mixtape was a hazy origin story, this is in media res: “I said it must be ‘cause a nigga got dough / Extraordinary swag and a mouth full of gold.” “Niggas in Paris” producer Hit-Boy supplies a quick, flighty loop—some kind of fife and drum arrangement—encouraging a more immediate and complex delivery than anything Rocky’s done before. And what is being delivered? Self-actualization; universal swag; effortlessness. His rhymes are as in-the-pocket as Biggie’s, but without the hard-knock sting; “Tell ‘em quit the riff raff bitching with your bitch ass” just sounds cool. There’s no biographical imperative after the mixtape, but to release a “radio” single would undermine A$AP Rocky’s greatest strength: his otherworldly self-confidence. So “Goldie” is a debut single that sounds timeless, divorced from the context that birthed it.

The lengthy chopped-and-screwed hook is brilliant, a gimmick that amplifies Rocky’s wordplay by obscuring it. All the tiny decisions within the verses—Cristal or Aces? Ferrari or a tank?—communicate the excitement of the new rich world Rocky’s inhabiting through the uncanny familiarity—which perhaps sums up his appeal—of self-taught Bloomberg New York cool, of growing up in the hood in an era where luxury goods are more prominent than urban decay. And in the music video, we see him driving around the Eiffel Tower wearing sunglasses like the ones Prince wears on the cover of “When Doves Cry.” He is one of the “Niggas in Paris” Kanye raps about, who radiates belonging and inhabitance without a shred of self-doubt. This is poise not as a path, but as a way of being.