The Live From New York film finds Rocky performing eight tracks, most of whch landed on his 2026 Don’t Be Dumb album, while combining his high-octane energy, opulent taste and visionary creativity on set.
The 40-minute flick was originally streamed Jan. 18 in celebration of Yams Day, as Rocky paid tribute to the late A$AP co-founder A$AP Yams, who died in January 2015.
Rocky’s set ran through Don’t Be Dumb opener “Order of Protection,” “Helicopter,” “Stole Ya Flow,” “SWAT Team,” “Punky Rocky,” Testing‘s “A$AP Forever,” “Stay Here 4 Life” and “Don’t Be Dumb.”
“I think this intro had this majestic way that it was layered. Made me feel like this is intro-appropriate. Out of the palette, which one stands alone,” Rocky said of “Order of Protection.” “Intros could be interludes or outros, if it checks all those boxes, but still has that significant feeling, there you have it.”
Rocky leaned on filmmaker Tim Burton and film composer Danny Elfman to help build out the world surrounding Don’t Be Dumb. He gave a look into his creative process with the decorated cinephiles.
“When working on this album initially we were putting a lot of [Danny Elfman’s] films he did in collaboration with Tim Burton on the TV monitors in the studio,” Rocky explained. “We would sometimes mute and unmute them to get a depiction of how we wanted to layer and color and how we wanted to start building the tone of the album.
He continued: “I was creating a world and was like, ‘Why not reach out to the man himself?’ We reached out to him and he turned out to be a dope-a— fella and he exceeded all of our expectations.”
Don’t Be Dumb arrived in January and served as Rocky’s first album since 2018’s TESTING. The project notched the Harlem rapper his third No. 1 album atop the Billboard 200 with 123,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending Jan. 22, according to Luminate.
