1988–present
A$AP Rocky News: Rapper Acquitted in Assault Trial
A$AP Rocky was found not guilty of two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. The rapper was acquitted by a Los Angeles jury on February 18 after he was accused of shooting at his former friend and collaborator Terell Ephron, also known as A$AP Relli, following a 2021 confrontation. Both men were part of the A$AP Mob rap collective.
After the verdict was delivered, Rocky jumped into the court gallery to embrace his family and his longtime partner, Rihanna, with whom he shares two children: RZA and Riot. “Thank y’all for saving my life,” he told the jurors. The 36-year-old, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, faced up to 24 years in prison.
During the three-week trial, Rocky’s lawyer argued that he was carrying a prop gun that only fired blanks on the night in question and said it was something he regularly held when he didn’t have security. His defense, as well as a witness, maintained that he only aimed the gun at Relli to stop him from attacking a mutual friend. Relli claimed a bullet grazed his hand but didn’t sustain major injuries. Investigators didn’t uncover any evidence at the scene of the altercation.
The jury’s acquittal means Rocky won’t face any jail time, but his legal woes aren’t over just yet. The $30 million civil lawsuit Relli filed against him is still ongoing.
Who Is A$AP Rocky?
A$AP Rocky is a Grammy-nominated rapper best known for his experimental approach to hip-hop music, penchant for collaborations, and unique fashion sense. The most prominent member of the A$AP Mob collective, Rocky burst onto the scene in 2011 with his critically acclaimed mixtape Live.Love.A$AP that ushering in a new sound of East Coast rap. His chart-topping debut album, Long.Live.A$AP, followed in 2013. Among his most popular songs are the Grammy-nominated “F**kin’ Problems,” G-Eazy’s “No Limit” also with Cardi B, and Selena Gomez’s “Good For You.” A$AP Rocky’s fourth album, Don’t Be Dumb, is expected to arrive in early 2025. Beyond music, the rapper is known for his years-long relationship with fellow musician Rihanna.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Rakim Athelston Mayers
BORN: October 3, 1988
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
CHILDREN: RZA and Riot
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra
Early Life
Rakim Athelston Mayers, better known as A$AP Rocky, was born on October 3, 1988, in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood to Barbadian parents. Both he and one of his sisters were named after their mom’s hip-hop heroes, Eric B & Rakim; his sister is Erika B.
Rocky started rapping at 8 years old but only became serious about his craft a decade later. Despite his New York roots, he was a fan of Southern hip-hop while growing up, which explains the pronounced drawl in his rapping style.
When Rocky was 12, his father was jailed for drug dealing. A year later, his 20-year-old brother, Ricky, was fatally shot by a rival dealer. Rocky was 13 at the time and on his way to school when his mom rushed over to tell him the tragic news. Despite his brother’s fate, the lure of the streets proved too powerful to resist for teenage Rocky, who started selling weed before gravitating to crack. But he was “never no big-time hustler,” he told the journalist Dorian Lynskey in 2015, making just enough to “support my studio time” but quitting dealing before getting sucked too far in. “That lifestyle’s wack,” Rocky said. “I don’t trouble the law no more.”
With his father in jail and his brother dead, Rocky, his mom, and two sisters spent time living in shelters. They moved around frequently: Harlem, the Bronx, Philadelphia, and North Carolina. He saw “a lot of crazy sh––” growing up, he told the Red Bull Academy in 2015. When he was 13 and living in east Harlem, older boys would knock passing delivery men off their bikes to “test their strength.” “I was a kid, so I’m like, ‘That’s how a man tests his strength?’” he said. “True story.”
Music Career
In 2007, a 17-year-old Rocky joined the A$AP Mob, a sprawling collective of rappers, producers, and video directors cofounded by the impresario A$AP Yams, Harlem’s answer to Malcolm McLaren. It was then that he acquired the moniker A$AP Rocky, the first part of which stands for three different things: Always Strive And Prosper, Assassinating Snitches and Police, and Acronym Symbolizing Any Purpose.
Rocky worked with three of A$AP Mob’s producers in particular to develop the spacey soundscapes underpinning his raps: Clams Casino, A$AP Ty Beats, and SpaceGhostPurpp. He self-released the singles “Peso” (on which he dropped the names of fashion designers like Rick Owens and Raf Simons, a future collaborator) and “Purple Swag” in 2011, sparking a major-label bidding war that began even before he had released his first mixtape, Live.Love.A$AP. That same year, he signed to the Sony/RCA subdivision of Polo Grounds Music for $3 million. It was a combined deal incorporating his solo projects and those of his collective, on their record label A$AP Worldwide. The split was reportedly $1.7 million for Rocky, $1.3 million for A$AP Worldwide.
Debut Album Long.Live.A$AP
Rocky’s debut solo album, Long.Live.A$AP, came out on January 13, 2013. Its many guests included Kendrick Lamar, Florence Welch, 2 Chainz, Joey Bada$$, Santigold, and A$AP Ferg. The album topped the Billboard 200 and generated the singles “Fashion Killa” and “F**ckn’ Problems,” which became the album’s biggest hit. With the featured guests Drake, 2 Chainz, and Lamar, it reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Song, and has sold the equivalent of 8 million copies in the United States alone.
Although 2013 was a vintage year for Rocky, his successes were bittersweet because his father had died in December 2012. Rocky told Vice that his father had been a big influence on him fashion-wise. “He was a clean-cut kind of guy… He told me to always be yourself and always feel comfortable with whatever decision you make because you chose to do it. Just because something doesn’t fit doesn’t mean it’s not right.”
At.Long.Last.A$AP
Rocky’s second album saw a change of direction. At.Long.Last.A$AP was released on May 26, 2015. Co-produced by the eclectic Grammy-winning super-producer Danger Mouse, it featured guest appearances from Kanye West, Future, MIA, Mark Ronson, and— unexpectedly yet triumphantly—the veteran rocker Rod Stewart on the single “Everyday.” There is more than a whiff of debauched 1970s rock star about Rocky, which might explain his surprise collaboration with Stewart, whom he described as “like seeing yourself 40 years older and white.”
The album also featured singer Joe Fox, who was homeless when he approached Rocky on the streets of London and tried to sell him a CD. Instead, Rocky asked Fox to sing for him and was so impressed he immediately invited him into a studio to record. Fox ended up contributing to five songs.
Musically, At.Long.Last.A$AP sounds much trippier than Rocky’s previous outing. Its psychedelic influence made manifest on the single “LSD,” which later earned a Grammy nomination for Best Music Video. In interviews Rocky spoke candidly about his use of the hallucinogenic drug: “It helps me cope with life,” he told Billboard. “I’ve been doing this stuff since I got into the industry. People are scared to talk about it.”
But as with his debut album, Rocky’s year was scarred by loss. His creative partner, friend and mentor, A$AP Yams died at age 26 from an overdose in January 2015. Yams had described Rocky as the Luke Skywalker to his Yoda. His passing made Rocky take stock of his life and career, according to an interview he gave to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in July 2015.
“It was always good to have that second opinion,” Rocky said. “To have my best friend there agreeing with me, let me know I wasn’t crazy.” Two months after Yams died, Rocky acknowledged to The New York Times that his friend had “always had a struggle with drugs” but also that his death might have been caused by sleep apnea: “There would be times that I would catch Yams choking on his own tongue,” he said.
Testing
Three years after the release of his previous studio album, Rocky followed up in May 2018 with the long-awaited Testing. Featuring such collaborators as Kid Cudi, French Montana, Kodak Black, and Frank Ocean, the album drew mixed reviews, with some critics questioning the cohesiveness of the music and ideas put forth, though most credited the rapper for his attempts at experimentation.
New Album
His upcoming album, Don’t Be Dumb, has faced several delays and is expected to come out in early 2025. The album’s second single “Tailor Swif,” released in August 2024, received a Grammy nomination for Best Music Video.
Acting and Fashion
Known for his sense of style, A$AP Rocky has been a brand ambassador for Dior and collaborated on his own clothing collections with major designers.
By 2015, Rocky was riding high on his success, with an apartment in Manhattan’s swanky Soho neighborhood and a house in Hollywood, California. By June, he had made his acting debut in director Rick Famuyiwa’s coming-of-age movie Dope. He played a small-time drug dealer, a role he had long since outgrown in real life. “I think all of us are that kind of guy—all of us rappers, to a certain extent” he told Billboard. “I never want to be that guy. That dude’s corny. He can’t even dress!”
This isn’t a criticism that could be easily leveled at Rocky. Although he has insisted he doesn’t want to become a fashion designer, he has nonetheless embarked on a number of high-profile collaborations. “Rocky has a very specific aesthetic,” designer Jonathan Anderson, with whom the rapper collaborated on a 2016 menswear capsule collection, told Complex magazine. “Ultimately, his style is more than just what he wears. It’s the way he carries himself, it’s his interests… It’s all about how you put your own personal twist on things.”
Rocky’s passion for fashion was there for all to hear on At.Long.Last.A$AP, over the course of which he name-checked more than 20 brand names, including Hermès, Prada, and Saint Laurent. This is something he has done from the get-go, and it has paid dividends. Having dropped the names of designers Rick Owens and Raf Simons into the lyrics of his breakthrough single “Peso” back in 2011, he went on to become friends with both. The following year A$AP Mob teamed up with the West Coast label Black Scale on a capsule collection of T-shirts and sweaters; while Rocky partnered with the designer Jeremy Scott on an all-black pair of Adidas Wings trainers.
Rocky has increasingly revealed an artistic, eccentric, dandified side of his character as he has gravitated away from Harlem towards downtown Manhattan’s creative milieu. Now a front-row fixture in the fashion world, he has collaborated with the designers Raf Simons and Jonathan Anderson, and in 2016 became the face of Dior Homme—the first person of color to represent the luxury menswear brand. By 2017, he was a front-row regular at fashion shows by Calvin Klein, Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Dior. He has since turned heads with his themed outfits at the annual Met Gala.
Net Worth
As of January 2025, Rocky has an estimated net worth is estimated at $20 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Partner Rihanna and Children
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky have been dating since 2020 and share two children.
A$AP Rocky confirmed his relationship with pop superstar Rihanna in November 2020. The pair were friends and musical collaborators for a decade before they started dating. Rocky went on tour with Rihanna in 2013, and she was featured his “Fashion Killa” music video later that year. Rocky opened up about his relationship in a GQ interview in May 2021, in which he called Rihanna “the one” and “the love of his life,” adding, “I think when you know, you know.”
The following year, they welcomed their son, RZA, in May 2022. Later that month, he told Dazed that he wants to raise his children to be open-minded. “I’m not trying to describe a saint, but realistically, I just want a cool child with cool parents,” he said. Rocky and Rihanna soon welcomed another child. Their daughter, Riot, was born in August 2023.
Legal Troubles
Rocky was arrested in Stockholm, Sweden, in early July 2019, after a video clip surfaced of the rapper and his entourage fighting two men in the street. Rocky posted additional footage to Instagram, which showed his crew repeatedly asking the two men to stop following them. Despite his claims of self-defense—and an attempted intervention by then-President Donald Trump—Rocky was deemed a flight risk and confined to a detention center until he could stand trial for assault. In August, Rocky was found guilty of assault and ordered to pay damages to one of the victims. He was also given a suspended sentence that capped his jail time at the month already spent behind bars.
Three years later, Rocky was arrested in April 2022 over a confrontation with his former friend A$AP Relli. Accused of shooting at Relli, the rapper was charged in August with two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Rocky maintained that the weapon was a prop gun that only fired blanks and was used in defense of a mutual friend. Following a three-week trial, he was found not guilty in February 2025. Rocky still faces a $30 million civil lawsuit Relli filed against him.
Quotes
- You got two types of rappers. The celebrity and the artist. I’m famous, I’m popular—I’m just not a celebrity. I’m an artist. In my sixties, I don’t want to be just remembered as that kid from back in the day that had cool sh––.
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Catherine Caruso joined the Biography.com staff in August 2024, having previously worked as a freelance journalist for several years. She is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she studied English literature. When she’s not working on a new story, you can find her reading, hitting the gym, or watching too much TV.
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