ROCKY GATEWAY by A$AP Rocky

One of hip-hop’s true mavericks, Harlem born MC A$AP Rocky, born Rakim Mayers, has taken the music, art and fashion worlds by storm. Since his emergence in 2011, Rocky has become a multi-hyphenated artist, entrepreneur, actor and fashion icon within the realm of popular culture. His first two albums, LONG.LIVE.A$AP and AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and his third studio album, TESTING, landed at #1 on the iTunes charts in 16 countries upon release. In 2019, Rocky released the single & video “Babushka Boi,” which went on to receive a 2020 MTV Video Music Award nomination for “Best Art Direction”. Rocky’s diverse artistic pursuits extend to his collaborations with many notable artists and creatives across various genres, including G-Eazy’s 5x RIAA Platinum “No Limit” with Cardi B, Mura Masa’s “Love$ick”, Tyler, The Creator’s “Who Dat Boy”, and songs with Lana Del Rey, The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, Young Thug, Skepta, Juicy J, Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys and more.
Spanning numerous hit records and headlined tours and festivals across the world, A$AP Rocky continues to explore new ways of storytelling through his unique art-infused, music-driven lens. For Rocky, the medium of NFTs is the latest extension of his artistic endeavors and an exciting new outlet for his creative expression. Known for breaking boundaries and defining new norms, Rocky is inspired by the opportunity to share his artforms through contemporary verticals within the NFT space. ROCKY GATEWAY is a collection from Rocky and AWGE creatives Robert Gallardo, Wally Sajimi and Jimmy Regular. The collection consists of 7 pieces: one 1/1 auction, featuring an unreleased A$AP Rocky song snippet titled “$ANDMAN,” including an in-person recording studio session with Rocky; two 3D scans of Rocky; one of Rocky's Testing Dummy Mask and three rally cars from his "INJURED GENERATION" Arena Tour. The 3 lucky raffle winners will receive the actual rally car(s) from the tour!
As a frequent innovator of sounds and visual aesthetics, A$AP Rocky continues to make fashion and art inextricable parts of his music. To conceptualize the release of his third album TESTING, Rocky partnered with Sotheby's for an immersive performance art piece called "Lab Rat," in which he portrayed himself as a test subject undergoing physical and psychological tests while surrounded by a crowd of onlookers and a world of viewers tuning in via a YouTube livestream. “Lab Rat” addressed questions of fame, ego, and artistic agency versus the demands of fans, sex, love, and loss, alluding to the challenges of the creative process. The piece was a continuation of Sotheby’s dialogue with Rocky, which began with a video in Sotheby’s Fearless Now series between Rocky and artist-activist Ai Weiwei to answer the question: what does it mean to be fearless? The duo revealed complementary – if not singular – visions of why art is central to humanity.
Recent years have also seen Rocky’s creative agency AWGE in the spotlight for creating global art installations, launching partnerships with fashion houses, including JW Anderson, Marine Serre and Amina Muaddi, directing short films, designing a store-within-a-store in Selfridges, and producing music videos with YouTube hits numbering into the billions. In addition, AWGE has launched the careers of noteworthy artists such as Playboi Carti, slowthai, Smooky MarGielaa, and more.