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Music

Exclusive: There’s a Handyman Driving Around Britain Called ASAP Ricky, So We Rang Him

Chatting hip-hop, puns, and property maintenance with the newest member of ASAP Mob.

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

Jason Donervan: mobile kebab stall. Florist Gump: florist. Alan Cartridge: I.T and printing services. Those stupidly joyless Virgin Media vessels that've been named Van Diesel and Julie Vandrews. Yes, us Brits have a knack for making a great shop or service related pun. We like to take our precious livelihoods—the source of all our emotional and financial stress, feeder of our children, warmer of our home—and reduce it down to a throwaway joke that might make a glancing passerby smirk for a fleeting moment, perhaps enough for them to briefly slow down their Passat before they pull into the nearest Asda.

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So you can imagine my delight when I was ploughing along the motorway and began hovering behind another brave stalwart of the Great British Business Pun Brigade: A$AP Ricky. Being a fan of both hip-hop and puns in almost equal measure, I take affront to the lack of hip-hop based business puns here in the UK. For every Spruce Springclean, Brim Full of Rasher, or Only Foods and Sauces, there’s only one Roots Manoeuvered (a tree surgeon in South London), which is frankly unacceptable. When I saw my boy Ricky flying the flag not only for A$AP mob, but also for rap puns and property maintenance services, my heart skipped a thousand jumps.

Eager to find out more about this man, the latest addition to A$AP Mob, I gave him a bell for a quick chat…

Noisey: Hello mate. So, why did you call yourself A$AP Ricky?
A$AP Ricky: I’m Carl Richard, and Ricky is short for Richard or Rick, or whatever. And it sounded well catchy. I’ve been doing this for about ten years, so have had a few names now, but this is the first one I’ve had officially, because it was mega catchy.

How long have you been called A$AP Ricky then?
Two years now. I’ve just had my second year as a sole trader. Someone proposed it to me because of rap, like gangster rap and all that. I said, "Aye that would sound amazing." People actually take photographs of the van all the time.

I know, I kinda did as well.
Was it on a motoway, mate?

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Yeah it was, yeah.
Yeah I had to leave Facebook, because I got sick to death of people tagging me. I was in a coffee shop one morning and some kid started taking photos of me van. I said, "What the hell are you doing!?" And he was saying it was the best thing he’s ever seen in his life. So I said, "Aye, thanks."

Where are you from then A$AP Ricky?
I’m from Newcastle.

And what do you do?
Anything to do with maintenance really, basically like a handyman. A bit of paint, bit moving, bit of whatever people need doing. But I make absolutely jack money.

Whose your favourite member of the A$AP mob?
I don’t really follow music that much. I’m more into sort of indie music, but I do like rap, and stuff like that. Like I have a few albums.

So what’s your favorite rap song?
To be honest, it’s "Staring Through My Rearview" by Tupac.

That’s quite pertinent to how I found out about you actually. And who's your favorite rapper, dead or alive?
Probably Tupac.

Fair play. What about your favorite album?
To be honest mate I couldn’t tell you. I’m quite into grime at the minute, 'cos it’s quite popular an' all that. Basically music at the moment is pretty crap, like normal music is pretty dire. Like on Sky you only got two rap channels.

Very true, very true. What’s the most gangster thing you’ve ever done?
Mate, I’m 44.

What about when you were younger?
Well I was into raving an that, staying up every weekend taking tablets an that, as you do in the 90s. I got a daughter who was born 89, and have a niece whose the same age, so I’m quite close to my niece and she’s into all that like Drake and The Game and stuff like that. But her Uncle Rich is just into dance. Like I was out on the town till four in the morning last weekend, me—first one in the club last one out!

So, you’re not ready to give up the gangster life yet?
Nah I can’t hide I’m getting older. Like, it takes a few more lie downs to get over things. But I’m still wearing skinny jeans an' that.

Cheers, Ricky. Keep punning.

You can follow Tom on Twitter.