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A$AP Rocky is gearing up to add on to this year’s incredible hip-hop music spree, and it’s safe to say he’s just about ready.

After making tons of media rounds, as his sophomore album At. Long. Last. A$AP releases on May 12th, the Harlem native has just covered Billboard Magazine.

In the interview, Rocky opens up even more about a slew of topics he’s been touching on, including the aftermath of the death of his close friend A$AP Yams, his new acting career, and more.

He also touches base on his music taste, which may surprise most of his fans, since it’s pretty diverse.

On his music taste:

A$AP Rocky admits he’s only skimmed Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly: “I got about two songs I liked.” On the other hand, he can’t stop talking about all things psychedelic, especially rock and trip-hop. For inspirations, he name-checks Portishead, Massive Attack, Thom Yorke and “old ’60s psychedelic shit” like the Kinks and the Stooges. At one point, he breaks into singing Cream’s “Free” and calls T. Rex’s Electric Warrior “perfection.”

At. Long. Last. A$AP. collaborator Mark Ronson once asked Rocky if he had heard of Tame Impala. “He looked at me like I was crazy,” Ronson tells Billboard. “[He] proceeded to play me a chopped-and-screwed remix that he made of [the band’s] ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards.’ He played me a lot of amazing music that I had never heard of.”

On his fashion sense:

By now, A$AP Rocky’s fashion exploits have been well-documented. He’s collaborated with Raf Simons and Jeremy Scott and when he explains his personal taste, he gives the impression that he’s original enough to make a lasting impact. “I don’t like doing anything anyone else is doing,” he tells Billboard. “If leather’s popular this year, I’m just going to have to go with suede. If you want to consider my shit alternative, so be it. I just look at it as eclectic.”

On his acting career, and doing it on his own terms:

Rocky made his film debut playing a small-time drug dealer in Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope, a smash at Sundance in January. Although he calls it “an amazing movie,” he’s taking his time in choosing his next project. He scoffs at his own past as a dealer and thinks the Dope character is “too typical” for a rapper. “I want something that gives me more of a challenge and is less cliched. Until I find something that feels right, I’m going to stay my ass off the big screen.”

On losing his closest friend, A$AP Yams:

When A$AP Yams, aka Steven Rodriguez, died in January of an accidental drug overdose, the entire A$AP crew was obviously devastated. Rocky was particularly shaken up, as Yams was the seasoned hip-hop veteran who’d groomed him since he was just out of his teenage years. At the time of his Billboard interview, Rocky had been logging nightly studio sessions, trying to finish an album his mentor conceived before his death. “He left his notebooks, he left his blueprint. His album’s f–ing -incredible. I want to finish what he started.”

See the full interview over at Billboard.

SOURCE: Billboard Magazine | PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter, Getty

A$AP Rocky Opens Up On His Music Taste, Acting, & Inspiration From A$AP Yams’ Death With Billboard Magazine  was originally published on globalgrind.com