“I used to be proud of my Old Navy, man.”
On Thursday night, A$AP Rocky sat down for a public chat in his native Harlem as a part of the Red Bull Music Academy New York festival. Speaking with veteran hip-hop journalist Chairman Mao, Rocky opened up about everything from growing up in Harlem, to recent incidents of police brutality, to coping with the death of one of his best friends, A$AP Yams. Here's what we learned.
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When Rocky was 13, he lived in east Harlem and saw "a lot of crazy shit." For instance, he used to watch older kids topple passing delivery guys to "test their strength."
"I was a kid so I'm like, 'That's how a man shows his strength?" he said. "True story."
He wants to act more, even though he admits it's kind of boring.
Rocky will make his acting debut this year in the Sundance hit Dope, about a geeky kid who falls into business with a drug dealer (Rocky plays the drug dealer). Though he said he wants to do more acting in the future, Rocky admitted that the process wasn't as glamorous as he thought it would be. "They make you say the same line over and over and over, even if you got it perfect," Rocky said, adding that he often had call times as early as 5 a.m. on days when shooting wouldn't start until 3 p.m. "They know they're not gonna use [the footage], so I don't know why they ask for the shit."
"Sometimes I put on classical shit when I'm in an uber," Rocky said with a laugh when talking about the kind of music he listens to. "It kinda makes you feel like a gangster on the way to a mob hit or something."
