The line between recklessness and pure chaos is thin when it comes to A$AP Rocky‘s music. The very lead-up to the rapper’s first album in eight years was marked by this tension, and given his last effort was the divisively experimental Testing, nobody expected Don’t Be Dumb to be totally mature and cohesive. For all its occasional – and often refreshing – silliness, the record mostly heeds its own titular advice, faltering when it tries too hard to offer a world of wisdom in proving its relevance. That effort borders on tired desperation over an hour’s worth of music, but Rocky zigzags between styles like he knows exactly where he’s going, giving the appearance of careful curation even as the record only gets weirder and messier. His energy may sometimes be misdirected, but it hardly wanes, and it’s easy to have fun with it when he seems to be doing the same.
1. ORDER OF PROTECTION
The opening track feels redundantly expository and overlong at less than three minutes, with the beat dropping around the halfway point – and it should hit a lot harder. Rocky’s bars are solid but generally forgettable, except for that one line about fans “still screamin’ encore when I’m long gone.” It’s true that his absence was never really felt.
2. HELICOPTER
The early single gets the adrenaline flowing way more than its predecessor ‘PUNK ROCKY’ – a rambunctious tune Rocky’s more than capable of owning, even as its sawing synths threaten to drown it all out.
3. INTERROGATION (SKIT)
“I ain’t gon’ put out no crystal clear garbage,” he declares, “I put out staticky good shit.” By his exhilaration alone you hope he delivers.
4. STOLE YA FLOW
Even at his most brazen, Rocky still fires out clunkers – I mean, “Hip-hop is my house, welcome to mi casa” – but that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s in peak form on ‘STOLE YA FLOW’. It’s a diss track all the more brutal for its ambivalence (Drake and Travis Scott are both possible targets), but Rocky’s resentment breeds knife-sharp precision.
5. STAY HERE 4 LIFE
There’s no world in which ‘STAY HERE 4 LIFE’ needs to be almost six minutes long, even if it speaks to the point of the song. The second part stultifies what’s already a pretty dull R&B tune, with a solid Brent Faiyaz feature and Hit Boy production that’s too placid to be hypnotic. If it’s to be a hit, I wish they didn’t have to play the whole thing.
6. PLAYA
The smoother, more mature side to Rocky’s newly unbothered attitude, ‘PLAYA’ glimmers with production from Cardo Got Wings, Johnny Juliano, Yung Exclusive, and Loukeman – not to mention a sneaky Thundercut feature. It’s a vibrant reintroduction to the rapper’s rulebook that’s easy to warm up to and instantly makes ‘STAY HERE 4 LIFE’ sound better.
6. NO TRESSPASSING
The album’s second best banger, frantic and dark enough to conjure the word “demon” out of the “Shut it down” refrain. Between gurgling synths and an ear-piercing one, Rocky steps it up in the second verse, having fun with lines like “Ghetto birds in the air, they tried to pigeonhole us.” It’s infectious.
7. STOP SNITCHING
Rocky immediately follows it up with the best one, a team-up with Houston underground rapper Sauce Walka that spirals on legal drama like it should be everyone’s business. Its paranoia makes every other song on Don’t Be Dumb sound timid by comparison.
8. STFU
Rocky’s experimental tendencies flare up on ‘STFU’, an absolutely feral collaboration with California’s Slay Squad, whose member Brahim Gousse delivers one of the album’s most killer lines: “They say Haitians eating cats, I make sure my dogs eat.” Rocky’s own sincerity goes hard: “I’m a grown man, on my wholesome shit.” You’d expect him to say stuff like this at this point – maybe not that it would go so hard.
9. PUNK ROCKY
I seem to like ‘PUNK ROCKY’, which would not sound out of place on an Yves Tumor record, more than the average fan; but it’s an admittedly odd choice for a lead single, and it halts the album’s momentum. There’s something about the hazier, psychedelic parts of the record that stand out on their own – especially when paired with that Winona Ryder-starring video like ‘PUNK ROCKY’ – but don’t quite gel with the rest of the LP.
10. AIR FORCE (BLACK DEMARCO)
Starting with ‘PUNK ROCKY’, the experimental final section of the album offers plenty to attract indie rock fans. Mac DeMarco is not actually featured here, but Rocky did confirm, on the New York Times Popcast, that he recorded music during COVID with him, Ariel Pink (ugh), and John Maus. The track’s production is way more dynamic than you’d expect from just listening to the chorus, a restlessness Rocky matches by deftly switching up his flow.
11. WHISKEY (RELEASE ME)
Once again keeping the rhythm fluid, ‘WHISKEY’ is too playful and catchy to slip through the cracks. Instead of doing a Gorillaz impression, Rocky actually gets Damon Albarn on the song and then adds Westside Gunn to the mix, just to flex. You can’t blame him when it manages to work.
12. ROBBERY [feat. Doechii]
Rocky introduces a wholly different side of his showmanship near the very end of the record, a cartoonishly theatrical performance aided by an even goofier Doechii. It’s charming if oddly out of place.
13. DON’T BE DUMB / TRIP BABY
The album’s edges are softened on the dreamy, even sleepy title track, the Clairo-sample first part of a song with a rather nondescript second half. Earning some more indie cred before easing us into ‘THE END’.
14. THE END [feat. will.i.am and Jessica Pratt]
It was disappointing to discover that Rocky’s 2024 Jessica Pratt collab ‘HIGHJACK’ wouldn’t be on the record, but the rapper does one better by ending it with another one, a hauntingly dystopian tune that manages to also fit in a will.i.am verse. Rocky has been hinting at its heavy-handed global warnings for the past few songs, so ‘THE END’ doesn’t feel entirely awkward – and corny as “Newsflash, we at war, a global warning” might sound, Pratt’s simplistic refrain, interpolating Nancy Priddy’s 1968 song ‘Ebony Glass’, makes up for it. After all, she has a way of singing about the world as if holding it in her own palm. Here, all she urges is for us to take a better look at it.
15. SWAT TEAM
Relegated to bonus track status, ‘SWAT TEAM’ nevertheless boasts one of the album’s most kinetic beats (from Kelvin Krash, KayCyy, and SpaceGhostPurrp). It’s a shame that Rocky doesn’t do much with it lyrically.
16. FISH N STEAK [feat. Tyler, the Creator & Jozzy]
There may have been songs on the main record where Tyler, the Creator would be better suited, but it’s still exciting to hear him reunite with Rocky on ‘FISH N STEAK’. Their off-kilter dynamic accentuates the song’s woozy production, as Tyler mostly raps about riding around with your friends, “how that sunroof opened up like therapy.” At its warmest and most mature, Don’t Be Dumb can feel a little like that too. Other times you just hope it doesn’t crash.
