The sum of all this layering is a leaning Jenga tower of sounds that hisses and warbles like a shaky radio signal. Rocky’s flow slides in and out of sync with Pat’s signature staccato, generating a counter-rhythm that gets played up by choice record scratches. On “Gunz N Butter” Rocky’s distorted vocals are stacked atop a chunky, pitched-down sample of Project Pat’s “ Still Ridin Clean” that’s accented by ad-libs from Juicy J (who is also a guest on the Project Pat song). His approach to songcraft on Testing is to mash sounds together and capture the friction. Like the crash dummies from which Testing and LAB RAT crib their aesthetics, Rocky is enamored with collision. If curation is the union of taste and restraint, intuition is the union of taste and curiosity. Testing, Rocky’s third studio album and first outing without the direct oversight of his late friend and counsel A$AP Yams, uses intuition as its guiding force, broadening Rocky’s palette by simply trusting what he likes and what he doesn’t.
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