A$AP Rocky - Long.Live.A$AP

While his lyrics are thug-informed and filled with a snotty swagger, rapper A$AP Rocky cloaked himself in the crackle and reverb of witch house, and then connected the dots to hip-hop's druggy past, offering chopped (cut-up) and screwed (slowed-down) hooks that recalled the hypnotic world of DJ Screw, Three 6 Mafia, and Swishahouse. Mixtapes and the Internet were his platforms, while goth and Masonic designs were his imagery, and then somehow, some way, this polar opposite to what was poppin' in 2012 wound up in a Lana Del Rey video, performing next to Rihanna at the MTV Video Music Awards, starring in an EA Sports video games commercial, and on the RCA label with a three-million dollar contract. The reason is, he can create a batch of tracks as solid and addictive as the ones found on Long.Live.A$AP, his official debut album, which lands as a more ambitious, more polished alternative to his 2011 mixtape Live Love A$AP. Here, the album rolls out with the fan-tested title track and the