A$AP Yams the founder of A$AP Mob Dies at the Age of 26

 

 

The co-founder and the architect of the A$AP Mob, ASAP Yams dies at 26, according to the label. Circumstances leading to his death have not been made public though some publications are speculating it could be drug related considering the rap aficionado's past addictions. 

However, tributes have been made on the social media by his friends and colleagues.

Steven Rodriguez, aka Yams, founded the Mob with fellow New Yorkers ASAP Bari and ASAP Illz in 2007 before adding ASAP Rocky and ASAP Ferg the following year.

Yams, born Steven Rodriguez, grew up in Harlem and became obsessed with rap music at an early age. As a teenager, he interned with Harlem’s legendary Diplomats Records, began managing some local producers, and sold mixtapes on the side. In 2007, at age 17, he co-founded ASAP Mob with ASAP Bari and ASAP Illz; they linked up with ASAP Rocky and ASAP Ferg a year later. By 2010 Yams was becoming an online tastemaker due to his Tumblr; by 2011, Rocky’s “Purple Swag” and “Peso” put the group on the map and the crew began signing major-label deals; and by 2013, Rocky’s official debut album Long.Live.A$AP debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. That rise can partly be attributed to Yams’ business savvy and aesthetic vision. He was a behind-the-scenes guy who ASAP Mob’s publicist once described as “the backbone of the operation.”

Yams was called the Damon Dash to Rocky’s Jay Z or the Puff Daddy to his Biggie in 2013 a profile by The New York Times. In the same story, Yams referred to the relationship in Star Wars terms: “Rocky’s like Luke Skywalker, and I’m Yoda,” he said. Discussing how Rocky’s blend of regional and historical styles was a result of Yams’ direction, reporter Jon Caramanica wrote, “Hip-hop has long been obsessed with fealty to a specific place and time, and Yams’s vision of the genre as an open house, not a fortress, qualifies as a radical one.”

“Yams came and got me out the slums,” Joey Fatts said on Twitter. “I was sleeping in cars and garages. A n—— can’t stop crying. Yams was the first person to care about what me, Vince Staples and Aston Matthews had to say. No one else. He believed in us.

“Yams was the savior of hip-hop,” Fatts added in a separate post. “He was our generation’s next big A&R. Did it for the love.”