In Memoriam: A$AP Yams, het meesterbrein achter de A$AP Mob-crew

Foto via A$AP Mobs Instagram

Steven Rodrigues, beter bekend als A$AP Yams, de oprichter van het New Yorkse hiphopcollectief A$AP Mob, is overleden. Hij is 26 jaar geworden. Yams stond bekend als een scherpzinnige, grappige en sprankelende persoonlijkheid in de New Yorkse hiphopscene. Er wordt wel gezegd dat mede dankzij hem de Amerikaanse stad zijn raprenaissance beleefde. Het is nog niet bekend waaraan hij is overleden.

Yam was mede-eigenaar van A$AP Worldwide, het label van de A$AP-crew. Ook het snelle succes van A$AP Rocky is grotendeels te danken aan Rodrigues – op een innovatieve manier werkte hij op Tumblr aan Rocky's imago.

Veel mensen van het Noisey-team in de Verenigde Staten werkten nauw samen met Yams en dan vooral tijdens het maken van SVDDXNLY, de A$AP Rocky-documentaire:

"Onze gedachten gaan uit naar de A$AP-crew. Yams was een mooie, intelligente jongeman wiens positieve energie direct voelbaar was zodra hij ergens binnenliep. Met hem samenwerken was altijd een avontuur en een genot. Hij zal intens worden gemist door onvoorstelbaar veel mensen. RIP Yamborghini."

– Noisey

Foto: Ben Rayner

Andy Capper, de producer van SVDDXNLY, werkte een periode intensief met hem samen. Een I.M.

I first met A$AP Yams, Steven Rodriguez, on the set of Rocky's "Wassup" video, downstairs from the Vice office in Brooklyn at Fast Ashley's studio.

There were about seven or eight other A$AP affiliates there at the time, including their manager Chace but it was obviously him and Rocky that were the leaders of this wild new gang of kids who were kinda rag-tag during this super early stage of their career.

Rocky had this charismatic male model vibe but then his partner was this little Puerto Rican pirate called Yams who’d just got a skull with a screw drilling through it on the side of his neck and I think one of the first things he said to me was something about “impregnating washed up 90s R&B bitches,” to which I was like, “err I guess so?”

It was a fun, weird start to our friendship, but I got to know him over the next couple of years during the projects we did with A$AP and at various live music things and then meetings at the office where he’d fill us in on his new projects and then the late night phone calls about great-idea-at-the-time-things that never really happened. (Yams if you’re reading this, we’re doing the Earl Swavey thing we talked about so much!)

During that time, I found him to be one of the sweetest, smartest young dudes I’d ever met in the music industry. I dunno if you’ve heard, but the industry can be full of phony, humorless people who only really care about themselves; Yams was the polar opposite of that.

He was deadly serious about A$AP but never took himself seriously at all.

His sense of humor and charisma was legend and even in the busiest, dumbest party he always had time to talk and be real. He was also a creative and visionary genius, a true New York original who helped take the rag-tags I mentioned at the start of this to international stardom in just a couple years.

His influence on modern culture can't be overstated, really.

I hadn’t seen him face to face for a few months but I truly counted him a friend and that’s why this is so surreal and difficult.

R.I.P Yams, I will miss you. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

Life is precious. Everybody be careful out there.