A$AP Rocky Says Most Atlanta Artists Sound the Same, Que Responds
Back in May, A$AP Rocky sat down for an extended interview with Red Bull Music Academy to build anticipation around his then-upcoming album At.Long.Last.A$AP. Yesterday (July 9), Red Bull posted the full interview, which was held in front of a live audience, and Rocky is back in the headlines for something he said months ago. The A$AP frontman is garnering plenty of backlash for his comments on Atlanta music, which many will argue is running the hip-hop scene right now, after he claimed that most of the MCs sound the same.
"If we're gonna be honest, some of the dopest music is coming out of Atlanta right now," he started."But, all them niggas sound the same....[In New York City,] there's not as much dope shit--well it [sic] is, but a lot of people don't see it the way I see it. [New York rappers] don't sound alike. Everybody just got their own different thing going on."
Rocky continued to digress about the music coming out of Atlanta--even going back on his initial statement a little bit--and went on to cite specific examples. "I'm not saying all Atlanta rappers sound the same, but for the most part, majority, they all kind of have similar cadences, flows and deliveries. They even recycle the same lyrics from each other."
The Harlem native pointed out the similarities between Future's "Shit" and Que's "OG Bobby Johnson" by saying, "This ain't dissing nobody, but I don't understand how Future can make a song like 'Shit,' then this nigga, I forget his name, you make 'OG Bobby Johnson'....It's the same thing Future's saying. And we allowed that.
"Not taking nothing away from Que--I know his name--not taking nothing away from him, but I just feel like, come on. I like the song...and this sounds like I'm downplaying the guy. I don't even know him, so I don't got nothing against him. I'm just telling the situation. I feel like it's okay to be inspired but you can't bite off contemporary artists that's in your same league."
Rocky's points are a bit ironic considering that he has been criticized of biting the chopped and screwed sound of Houston and using elements of southern hip-hop in his music. When Rocky first broke onto the scene with his Live.Love.A$AP mixtape, he used a very similar flow to the one Bone Thugs-N-Harmony patented in the '90s. Regardless, Que responded to Rocky's quotes on Instagram:
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