Steven Rodriguez, known better as A$AP Yams, has died at the age of 26, according to social-media posts by fellow A$AP Mob members. Yams started the influential hip-hop collective with A$AP Bari and A$AP Illz in 2007 and soon after met A$AP Rocky in 2008. Together they would transform hip-hop. Yams is largely known as the mastermind behind the scenes with an encyclopedic knowledge of hip-hop who curated rising talent on his Tumblr. “We wanted to become big,” Yams said in a New York Times profile. “But we didn’t want to do it by hopping on somebody else’s wave. We wanted to come in the game with our own wave.” He certainly did that.
Although Yams’s death hasn’t been officially confirmed, his fellow musicians have been posting tributes online. And since his life was so much about transforming youth culture through the twinning influences of hip-hop and the internet, here are some of the tributes that have emerged online. A$AP Mob posted this photo with the caption: “ALWAYS STRIVE AND PROSPER. RIP YAMS.”
A$AP Rocky posted this photo with the caption: R.I.P YAMS, I LOVE YOU BROTHER.
A$AP Ferg wrote on Instagram, “You were the brilliant mind, you put us on Game, you changed our lives. You changed my life, you changed the world. R.i.P YAMZ there can never be another one after you.”
Rest in peace, Yams.
