SXSW Review: SVDDXNLY

He’s a little of both, to be honest. A Noisey documentary, SVDDXNLY tells the life story of A$AP Rocky, born Rakim (his sister is adorably named Erika B.) and his life growing up Harlem. After tragically losing his older brother the gang violence and his father going to jail at a young age, A$AP Rocky overcame drug dealing in the projects by founding the A$AP Mob, a collective of rappers and artists who seemingly existed to wear Gucci and ride BMX bikes. And that’s about it. Because after that the movie turns into “here’s a cool thing that happened to me, here’s another cool thing that happened to me;” no mentions of his arrests or his work with Clams Casino, which gave him strong critical backing. There is a scene showing his infamous brawl at SXSW 2012, which they make sure you know took place at the Vice Party. But even that comes across as A$AP Rocky only fighting because everyone was being mean to him and throwing water bottles at the stage. Not because his shows take the form of punk shows, and people throw shit at punk shows.

I do have to commend SVDDXNLY for finally showing me what it is I didn’t like about A$AP Rocky: he’s a boring kid that surrounds himself with super interesting people whose rising tides lift his boat. And since he’s chill and charismatic, he comes across as this sort of ringleader. This comes across most obviously with his poolside conversation with rapper Danny Brown, who is truly an interesting artist with a vision. And Danny basically wipes the floor with A$AP Rocky with his charisma and wit, leaving him to sort of cower.

A$AP Rocky is super young, and still has time to learn about the world, but SVDDXNLY, in the words of James Murphy, is “like a culture without the effort of all of the culture.”

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