A$AP Ferg Remembers Putting In Work At Ben & Jerry’s

A$AP Ferg knows a thing or two about working. Case in point, breakout single, fittingly titled "Work," is basically all about putting in work. It's also about putting "them in the dirt," but that's irrelevant here. Anyway, last time Fergie Ferg swung by the XXL headquarters, we asked him to tell us about jobs he's had in the past, and he was quick to open up about a few of his hustles. From serving ice cream at Ben & Jerry's to screen-printing shirts for Bad Boy in the early 2000's, Fergenstein stays busy. Check out some of his hilarious work stories below.

"I've always been self-employed, but one time I had got a little fake job at a Ben & Jerry's. It wasn't no real shit because my homeboy worked there, and at the time I needed some extra money because I had a spot for my silk-screen machines—I used to print shirts—and rent was due. It was winter time and everything slowed up, so I got a job at Ben & Jerry's because my boy was just like, 'You can just come in [and] work.' I didn't sign no papers, it was just straight under the table shit.

"It didn't work out because I would just give away mad free ice cream every time chicks walked in. And all my friends would come in and they would just be back there making their own milkshakes. [Laughs] It was fun, but it ain't really work out. I just needed that extra money just to pay that rent, but then summertime came around and money picked up.

"One of my first jobs was silk-screening shirts with my pops. We used to do a bunch of t-shirts for hip-hop labels. One of the first jobs I did was the Making The Band shirts for Puff. I did those and the Making The Band 2 shirts. I did the Loon shirts, for his album. I did D-Block shirts for the "Everywhere We Go" video. I did a bunch of shit. That was at a young age, coming straight out of high school, or still in high school. Just getting extra money.

"Then in junior high school, I used to print paint shirts. That was when Dipset was poppin', and they had all the splash pen on the shirts and everybody was putting their names and shit on their sleeves. I used to do custom shirts like that. That was my first hustle. I used to make a lot of money off that shit. A hustle is a hustle at the end of the day, as long as it gets you from Point A to Point B. As long as you got a bigger picture in mind, it's like, 'Alright, I'm going to use this as my stepping stone to get here. This isn't going to be for so long.' Tomorrow is always going to be a new day. I always had that mind frame, and that's why I never got stuck in a stagnant position. I always had different hustles.—As told to Dan Buyanovsky