You can read the full story at XXL and a portion of the interview below.

“We may even do an album together, we’ve been talking about it – call that whole shit Druggys Wit Hoes. We may do it. Me and Rocky may do a project together, too. We’ve been talking about it, too. I’m just waiting to get this album out and just see what happens. As of right now, I don’t now. After this album, shit, I want to work with both the homies. I want to do a project with Soul and I want to do one with Rocky. Maybe we can even put our own little group together – me, Ab-Soul, Danny Brown and Rocky.”

You can listen below, where we’ve also included a clip of Rocky freestyling over some Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. [via]

Gianni Lee and Mike Blud are carving out a niche for themselves providing mixtapes of samples used on some of the biggest hip-hop albums. Their profile continues to rise in the New Year as they have taken on A$AP Rocky’s full-length debut. The mixtape kicks off with an original mix from Lee, who then moves through the tracks that helped shape the sonic landscape of LongLiveA$AP. These include classics like Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”, Frou Frou favorite “Psychobabble”, and more. Perhaps most fitting is the fact we’re hearing Aaliyah’s “Can I Come Over” on here; today is her 34th birthday.

You can stream and/or download the tape below. Enjoy.

Download: Gianni Lee & Mike Blu – LongLiveA$AP Samples [Sharebeast]

Alternate link: MEDIAFIRE

You can watch the performance below. LongLiveA$AP is out now.

Listen below and download it on Kit Pop’s Facebook.

Since he exploded on the rap internet’s consciousness, A$AP Rocky’s greatest strength—beyond his cheekbones—is how he populates his albums and the worlds around them. He had a part in making Clams Casino the fanboy magnet he is now. He was pals with ScHoolboy Q before that was beneficial for either of them. He welded his style to the sounds of SpaceGhostpurrp and Main Attrakionz. He had one of the weirdest commercial rap hits of recent memory (“Peso,” a real hit in New York, even though it’s amorphous). He toured with Danny Brown, and the two of them seem like friends.

Rocky picks up the best underground talent as friends like he’s out here catching Pokemon. Which is why it’s not necessarily derogatory to say that Rocky is maybe the third best thing about LongLiveA$AP: It’s an album populated with memorable guest verses and wild production from the likes of Hit-Boy, Danger Mouse, Drake’s pal 40, Jim Jonsin and Clams Casino. Neither of those things would have been possible without Rocky though, and that’s where his greatest credit for LongLiveA$AP comes in; I don’t doubt for a minute that he and Skrillex hung out and somehow “Wild For the Night” happened.

LongLiveA$AP is basically LiveLoveA$AP in blockbuster form; you could probably trade the Rocky solo cuts between albums and never notice the budget increase. It’s built on the hazy, cloud rap beats Rocky favors, cut with his everything in its right place flow. You already know what you’re going to get with Rocky; Most of his verses are about his tastes in expensive labels, broads, drugs and his probably fake tales of prolificacy at repping Harlem and moving said expensive drugs. He’s not going to drop a concept album about a night out in his neighborhood that worries aloud about a generation raised by drugs and gangs. So LongLiveA$AP is what it is; the same old A$AP Rocky, presented by major label dollars and 2 Chainz hooks.

The title track sums up everything that made Rocky can’t miss since 2011: the beat selection, the ever-shifting rhyme pattern, the song’s ability to collapse freestanding structures, and its quotables-per-minute ratio. “Goldie” should have been song of the summer; but thanks to the album being pushed back and an inconsistent media blitz, it instead comes early here, and is still one of Rocky’s most well polished tracks. He re-teams with ScHoolboy Q to try to recapture the lightning of “Brand New Guy”, failing in an entertaining way with “PMW”. And that’s just the first three tracks.

I could probably write a dissertation on the state of underground rap circa 2013 via “1 Train”, so I’ll refrain here. But the thing that makes it the best posse cut since “Last Huzzah” is that it sounds like it was recorded as a group, like Danny Brown, Action Bronson, Big K.R.I.T., Rocky, Joey Bada$$, Kendrick Lamar and Yelawolf* all got together and recorded this thing in one session. Who would have thought that “Triumph”-style, chorus-deficient posse cuts would be the norm now?

One of the most charming things about LongLiveA$AP is that for an album that is supposed to prove to RCA that Rocky was worth that $3 million advance, it is remarkably short on anything that could even touch the radioplay already afforded “Peso”. The most obvious single, the one that features 2 Chainz, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, is called “Fuckin’ Problems”, and there’s no way to edit that down. “Goldie”, the other mega single, has a garbage disposal-voiced chorus, despite boasting two of Rocky’s best verses on the entire album. The Skrillex song isn’t enough Skrillex or Rocky to satisfy either dude’s fans. When a bonus cut featuring Gunplay (Gunplay!) is one of the most pop-friendly jams, you know Rocky had more of a hand in this than any A&R man, and that’s a net positive on LongLiveA$AP.

LongLiveA$AP more or less satisfies every requirement you’d have of an A$AP Rocky album, nothing more, nothing less. It can be a bit of a mess (especially towards the end), and it drags in places. It also has some of the most luxurious tracks this side of Kanye. Is it a disappointment that LongLiveA$AP isn’t a world-conquering masterpiece, the kind of album that cements Rocky’s status as the new King of New York? To some people, probably. But like I said before, Rocky’s greatest strength is creating an environment. As far as that goes, Rocky makes an environment here that is both rewarding and totally fun to return to over and over again. Long live A$AP.

*- This is the order of best to worst verse. Come at me.

3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5 out of 5

Many of the greats, if they haven’t fallen off, or been cut short by untimely death, have at least one album that sticks out like the plus-size contestant on America’s Next Top Model. It’s usually a shift towards a more popular sound or an experimental exercise. If we just stick to rap Common has Electric Circus and UMC, The Roots have Phrenology, Yasiin Bey has The New Danger, and Lupe has Lasers.

Well, Big Boi can now join them with Vicious Lies & Dangerous Rumors. An album that arrives near the end of an excellent year of rap music and hits like, well, um, a raw food restaurant in an urban area being gentrified. Two years after the excellent Sir Lucious Left Foot, the funk has been replaced by moody but “bright” EDM. Also while the gangsterisms and pimpology still exist in the lyrics, the sonic component of that content has all but evaporated quicker than rumors of a Three Stacks solo.

Let’s start with the good. “In The A” sounds like two dozen militarized elephants stomping through the streets of downtown Atlanta with T.I., Big Boi and Luda as their generals. All three rap as if their platinum plaques and accolades are still in the distant future. It’s easily one of 2012′s best songs. Opening track “The Thickets” is that classic DF sound full of syrupy soul and organic programming made for lifted light night rides through the city. “Raspberries” is a steady inaudible romp about strippers with plopping drums, water textures, and barren synths that Big Boi, Mouche and Scar warmly croon over. “Lines”, featuring A$AP Rocky and Phantogram, is also a moment where swag-rap and indie electro-pop blend together nicely.

Littered throughout the album, though, are just some down right WTF moments. “She Hates Me”, “CPU”, “Mama Told Me”, and “Tremendous Damage” are all exercises in competent pop that come across contrived or awkward. Big Boi almost sounds like a guest on his own songs, rapping about trite topics over-earnestly or half-heartedly. Just glancing at the song’s guest: Kid Cudi, Kelly Rowland and Bosko, shows that these songs aimed for radio plays, but they’re not even the sound of what’s popular for the next 36 seconds. By the time “Shoes For Running” ends, the rapping aspect of the album all but disappears into the ether of our confused head spaces.

Furthermore, while folks may find songs like “Apple of My Eye”, “Thom Pettie”, and “Objectum Sexuality” (Christ just think of the title of the latter, this is Big Boi we talkin’ ‘bout) as catchy, they are far from experimental. It’s nothing more than contemporary indie pop with new wave and electronic flourishes that have Big Boi as an ornament to their sounds; it’s a damn shame, too, ’cause Killer Mike crushes his verse on “Thom Pettie”.

The album ends with the more normative Big Boi stylings of “Gossip” and “She Said OK”, but the’re the bonus cuts almost as a gift to old fans. Plain and simply, I don’t come to Big Boi for this type of shit. I like my Little Dragon sans rapping just fine and my Big Boi gangster pimp raps full or trunk rattling slappers. I understand why some are very happy with this album, but personally it’s a disappointment. Not to mention that the album never sounds and expresses much of its paranoid title. Save a handful of songs, much of this is heading towards the desktop trash bin.

2.5 out of 5 stars

2.5 out of 5