A$AP Rocky finally released his long-awaited third studio album, Testing, today. The album features many heavyweight artists, but also some more underground names – most surprisingly, the elusive UK experimental artist Dean Blunt.
Blunt is best known for Hype Williams, the avant-garde group he formed with Inga Copeland named after the blockbuster hip hop video director, and more recently Babyfather, a hip hop-touched project that has collaborated with artists like Arca and Mica Levi.
On Testing, Blunt lends his production touch to “Purity”, which also features Frank Ocean and Ms. Lauryn Hill. Elsewhere on the album he produced the Juicy J-featuring “Gunz N Butter” and provides backing vocals on “Calldrop”, which sees Kodak Black rap from jail through a collect call.
This isn’t the first time A$AP Rocky has shown interest in Dean Blunt – take a look back at Rocky’s “MONEY BAGS FREESTYLE”, which samples Babyfather’s “Meditation”, and 2016’s “Benzo Amore”, a collaboration between the two artists. Still, it is surpising to see them working together on such a high profile release.
Testing includes an impressive list of collaborators besides Blunt, from FKA twigs to Dev Hynes to Skepta. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Rocky explained those he collaborated with on the album are the people he grew up listening to and admired most.
Take a look at the full credits above, and listen to the album below.
