A$AP Rocky Steps Back Into the Arena, All the Wiser, on the Ambitious ‘Don’t Be Dumb’: Album Review

It’s hard to make being Rihanna’s rich, handsome boyfriend sound lame, but Drake managed to do just that on “Family Matters.” Taking a moment to turn his focus from Kendrick Lamar to ASAP Rocky, the Toronto rapper accused the Harlem native of being relevant for his fashion sense instead of his mic skills: “Probably gotta have a kid again ‘fore you think of droppin’ any shit again / Even when you do drop, they gon’ say you should’ve modeled ’cause it’s mid again.” 

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It’s reductive, but fair. It’s been nearly eight years since Rocky dropped his middling last album “Testing,” and between a series of false starts, epic fit pics and parenting, there’s a generation of people who probably know him best as Rihanna’s stylish beau instead of a rap superstar. Released today, his fifth album, “Don’t Be Dumb,” is his chance to prove that Drake, and the Internet were… well, being dumb. Buoyed by propulsive charisma that nearly matches his grand aesthetic ambitions, Rocky’s latest does the job as an album that should put the memory of “Testing” to rest.  

At about an hour, the LP is largely as stylish as it is seamless, with Rocky shifting between dystopian Memphis street rap (“Stole Ya Flow”), punk rock (the aptly named “Punk Rocky”) and some lounge jazz (“Robbery”) with conviction and finesse. It’s all threaded by deft tonal control, acrobatic flow structures and a personality that can be forceful or disarmingly smooth. 

Amid the record rollout, Rocky called “Don’t Be Dumb” the album that 2011 Rocky would make if he were in 2026. It’s a sentiment that tracks. While emerging 15 years ago, Rocky established himself as a master of forward-thinking aesthetics that could embody the brooding cool of a swaggy ninja or the turnt exhilaration of a trap star’s rave. Those elements remain, but on “Don’t Be Dumb,” he infuses them with new themes of fatherhood and an unguarded tenderness. 

The Internet will walk away chattering about Rocky’s viciousness on “Don’t Be Dumb,” but it’s on “Stay Here 4 Life” that we see Rocky come into his own as a musician and a man. Blending a faded sample with Brent Faiyaz’s supple vocals, the track unfolds like a player’s catharsis. Distilling images of his own domestic dreams, Rocky sounds like he’s more than cool leaving his jersey in the rafters. From there, “Stay Here 4 Life” melts into “Playa,” an aqueous bop that redefines the idea of a “playa”: “Takin’ care of your kids, boy, that’s player shit / One bitch, boy, that’s player shit / No baby mama drama, no new friends, boy, that’s player shit.”

Rocky is admittedly most entertaining in petty mode. For the Sauce Walka-assisted “Stop Snitching,” Rocky distills what sounds like years’ worth of bitterness toward cooperators who made rapper RICO charges possible. (Or, more plainly, toward a certain former A$AP crew member who took him to trial for allegedly shooting him.) On “Stole Ya Flow,” he aims at Drizzy, turning apocalyptic synths into the site of a warzone. While he takes a moment to poke fun at Drake’s plastic surgery rumors, his later bars point to a level of contentment that eclipses any rap beef: “Now I’m a father, my bitch badder than my toddler / My baby mama Rihanna, so we unbothered.” It’s a “joke’s on you” victory lap for Dad Rocky, a person whose fashion exploits, romance and new-ish journey as a father make any cultural absence understandable. 

There aren’t really duds on “Don’t Be Dumb” — just tracks that are a bit too subdued to match the engrossing emotion of the album’s best songs. “Punk Rocky” is a lighthearted and possibly satirical punk rock song, but his vocal performance and the vagueness of the lyrics deflate the personality of the album, and his merely adequate vocals don’t do much to lift it. The album’s final cut, “The End,” feels cheaply didactic, almost like the obligatory woke song he felt he needed to have a classic album. 

Still, Don’t Be Dumb is a kinetic Venn Diagram for classic ASAP Rocky and the new father who’d rather kick back with his kids than be at a rave with Skrillex. Here, he balances his wild past with the Cool Dad vibes of his present. It doesn’t feel like it matches the magnetism of his 2011 debut mixtape or his formal debut album, but that could also be a bit of nostalgia. What we get is a 2026 version of Rocky who raps as sharply as ever while flaunting the curatorial abilities that helped make him a star in the first place. If Don’t Be Dumb is another test, then this time, Rocky certainly passed it.