“I’m just like wine, and a lot of people appreciate it more as they grow and evolve as music lovers.”

A$AP Rocky’s third album, TESTING, arrived in 2018 just as Drake and Pusha T’s beef was heating up. The drama—combined with a confusing rollout and mixed critical reception—meant it didn’t make the biggest splash of Rocky’s career. Last year, the Harlem rapper said he felt “emotionally discouraged” by the album’s initial reception, but in a new interview with Kerwin Frost, he shared a different perspective by comparing it to Kanye West’s experimental Yeezus.

“It’s like you either love it or hate it. That’s one of those experiments. That was like my Yeezus,” Rocky said. “Ironically Kanye helped me with that album. He came out to Berlin. Nah people don’t know that. Kanye, Virgil [Abloh], Dave Chappelle, Mos Def. I was just working on my album and MGMT came in and they helped produce. They was just helping me curate the album.”

Kanye’s 2013 release, Yeezus, offered a stark stylistic departure from 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Although it arrived to mixed reception, the project ended up on many end-of-decade lists and is cited as an influence by many rappers to this day.

According to Rocky, audiences are growing into TESTING just like they did with Yeezus.

“My cult following, I think they get it, they love it. I don’t wanna put out nothing that’s fucking contemporary,” he said. “They be mad at me for that because they know how easy it is for me to get on a song and say what they want me to say, but what I choose to do with my art you gotta appreciate. Listen I look at it like this bro. I feel like if I listen to what everybody tell me to do I’m gonna be fucking confused bro. I'ma do what I want and what feel right.”

Rocky has frequently talked about how the purpose of the album was to experiment with new sounds and unique combinations of artists, something he continued to underscore in his Kerwin Frost interview.

“French Montana and Frank Ocean on the same track? I wanted to do things you would never hear. Mixtures and combinations,” he said. “And a lot of these songs, you’re never gonna hear me rap like that ever again. I’m one of those artists, I’m just like wine and a lot of people appreciate it more as they grow and evolve as music lovers… They don’t really get it until two years later, three years later.”

TESTING hasn’t performed at quite the same commercial level as its predecessors, but the album is hardly a flop. It was certified Gold back in October 2019, and produced Platinum-certified hits with “Praise the Lord (Da Shine)” and “A$AP Forever.” The former song reached No. 45 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the second-highest chart position of Rocky’s career as a lead artist. He broke it down in a 2018 episode of Verified:

Rocky ultimately believes that catering too much to your audience can be a bad thing. “I think the best thing you can do is let the people decide for themselves when it comes to curating,” he said. “You just gotta give it to people and let them decide what they like.”

Watch his full interview above and catch up on all the lyrics to A$AP Rocky’s TESTING on Genius now.