Life + Times: On the song, “Bonnoroo”, you describe a moment you had with Lauryn Hill. His father, who was a well-known graphic designer in Harlem, designed the Bad Boy Records logo for Diddy and the Uptown Records logo for Andre Harrell, and as Ferg puts it, “did a bunch of shit for people in the industry.” Life + Times recently met with A$AP Ferg at the Polo Grounds’ offices and we discussed his latest mixtape, his walk-off with Cara Delevingne and his upcoming tour with YG. “Now that I’m on I feel like I can take that name to the next level,” says the rapper born Darold Ferguson, Jr. He decided on Ferg Forever as a way of paying homage to his father, his father’s legacy and his family’s name, which is Ferguson. He was especially careful in choosing a title for the mixtape. There are, of course, still joints to turn up to on the project, but there are also a set of more reflective, honest, revealing, emotionally-fueled and politically charged records like “Uncle”, “Bonnoroo”, “Commitment Issues”, “Thug Cry” and “Talk It.” “I now understand the power of words, so I now try to use them carefully,” he admits. “So what I’m putting out there is a little different from when I first started making music.” That growth and maturity is exhibited here and there throughout Ferg Forever, his latest mixtape. I kind of know what I want out of life,” says A$AP Ferg. There really is a lot of repetition on Trap Lord.Although A$AP Ferg is synonymous with the turn up – due in part to the success of singles like “Work” and “Shabba” – he feels his responsibility as an artist is bigger than just getting parties popping and as he gets older he wants his music to reflect that. Saying every song sounds the same is an easy way to write something off, but no, here it’s actually true. This can wear on a listener over the course of an LP, and becomes somewhat fatiguing. Songs like “Didn’t Wanna Do That,” “Fergivicious,” and even “Fuck Out My Face,” which finds Ferg putting Cypress Hill’s B-Real and Onyx in front of millennial listeners (these are obviously guys that even younger hip-hop listeners should know about) all seemingly traffic in the same downbeat double-time tempos and flows. Perhaps a downside to the project is its uniformity. Then there’s “Lord,” featuring standout verses from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (minus Wish Bone), where the ultimate takeaway comes from Ferg’s parting lines-“Study your scriptures and follow your God/Life in the trap I know times will get hard/I’ll pick up your life just abide by the lord/Or ride by the lord.” And the Veryrvre-produced “Hood Pope” expresses that sentiment to a similar effect, with Ferg seemingly singing from street corner in Harlem- “I’m the Hood Pope, these my children/And I’ll be their Donnie McClurkin”- while acknowledging that he’s no saint. To its best effect, this is evidenced on “Shabba Ranks,” which is all bottom-heavy bass and skittering drums, and finds Ferg dialing into a dancehall influence that you probably wouldn’t hear from most rappers outside of the Tri-state area (That’s certainly not to say it doesn’t exist elsewhere).

The album is a significant introductory effort from A$AP’s Mob’s next at bat, managing to successfully draw from hip-hop’s storied past and blend it with a variety of popular regional sonic influences.

Nowhere is that more evident than on A$AP Ferg’s debut LP, Trap Lord. William Shakespeare once wrote, “What’s past is a prologue.” Indeed, it really is. A$AP Ferg’s dark debut uses repetition to its favor

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