Eight years away from the booth can age a legend – or sharpen one – and on ‘Don’t Be Dumb’, A$AP Rocky returns refined. In the years following 2018’s ‘Testing’, the New Yorker has become a cultural icon in plain sight – curating fashion runways, fronting luxury campaigns, taking on a creative director role at Ray-Ban and starring in film projects – and has built a family with his long-term partner Rihanna. All the while, a highly scrutinised court case with former A$AP Mob associate A$AP Relli played out publicly, casting a long shadow over this album’s rollout. Teased, leaked, reshaped and repeatedly pushed back, Rocky’s fourth studio album has existed in fragments for so long that its arrival feels almost surreal, but it rewards that patience with a confident, grown pivot rather than a desperate grab for relevance.
With contributions from Thundercat, Jessica Pratt, Westside Gunn, Jon Batiste and more, Rocky resists narrowing his focus, moving fluidly between sounds with the poise of someone unconcerned with trend cycles. The album’s singles remain its most immediate statements – ‘Helicopter$’ still hits as a glossy, anthemic pop-trap flex drenched in bravado, while ‘Punk Rocky’, which announced the record with serrated edges, is a snarling, punk-leaning turn that, on release, raised expectations for both his rap instincts and his love for risk. Those expectations hang heavy over the album proper.
Across the first half, hooks consistently land: sticky, stylish, engineered for replay. Yet between those flashes, some verses and structures coast on vibes alone. The random sample of Ken Carson’s toyetic hellraiser ‘Mewtwo’ proves a jarring addition to the Brent Faiyaz-backed ‘Stay Here 4 Life’. The pair reach for a Casanova’s anthem – reassessing what player-ism looks like – but the result feels cluttered rather than convincing. Elsewhere, Rocky occasionally gets eclipsed. Sauce Walka walks him down on ‘Stop Snitching’, seizing the beat’s blaring horns with Southern twang and precision. ‘Whiskey (Release Me)’ with Gorillaz and Westside Gunn also feels oddly unfinished; its nostalgic mumbling delivery feels dated, like old 2016 trap drones, but not in a good way.
Where ‘Don’t Be Dumb’ truly clicks is when Rocky stops straddling lanes and leans fully into his experimental ways. The latter half feels richer, looser, more daring – the moment confidence turns into play. On the pixellated‘STFU’, he states it plainly – “I’m a grown man, on some wholesome shit” – reflecting on how, for more than a decade in the limelight, he’s gone from a boy to a man in front of billions. This crystallises on ‘The End’, where he and will.i.am reflect on poverty, prisons, gang life and structural cycles shaping Black American communities for an explicitly serious moment that’s rare in Rocky’s mostly hedonistic writing.
That maturity reaches its peak on the Doechii-featuring ‘Robbery’. Jazz-infused and theatrically cinematic, it plays like a smoky late-night speakeasy unravelled by swing rhythms and bluesy flourishes – fresh, playful and fully realised. It’s the clearest reminder that Rocky’s best moments arrive when he commits to a concept rather than vibing his way through tracks. The long-awaited reunion of Tyler, The Creator and Rocky on ‘Fish N Steak’, meanwhile, taps into their adored dynamic: Tyler’s eccentricity offset by Rocky’s straight-man restraint, for a thrilling tune that lives up to the high quality of their previous collabs.
In the run-up to this release, many expected an overtly autobiographical record, or something that copied modern trends like an oldhead trying to cling onto his youth – but that’s never been Rocky’s instinct. Where he once revelled in youthful excess, ‘Don’t Be Dumb’ reframes his Pretty Flacko swagger into something more gentlemanly. There are subliminal disses – some read toward Drake, others toward A$AP Relli – but they sit within the fabric rather than hijacking it. Ultimately, this is a more mature Rocky: suited, settled and self-assured. The bachelor’s grown up – and somehow, that hasn’t dulled his shine at all.
Details
Record label: A$AP Worldwide/RCA Records
Release date: January 16, 2026
The post A$AP Rocky – ‘Don’t Be Dumb’ review: a suited, settled and self-assured return that doesn’t dim his light appeared first on NME.
