A$AP Mob Co-Founder and Manager, A$AP Yams Died

ASAP Yams, co-founder and manager behind the ASAP Mob has passed away. No details are available at the moment, but members of the crew have confirmed the death via social media. The tragic news spread quick this morning, as he was only 26 years old.

Ams, born Steven Rodriguez, grew up in Harlem and became obsessed with rap music at an early age. As a teenager, he interned with Harlem’s legendary Diplomats Records, began managing some local producers, and sold mixtapes on the side.

In 2013, the New York Times caught up with Yams and described him with the likes of hip-hop moguls Puff Daddy, Damon Dash, and Irv Gotti. Yams referred to himself as the Yoda to Rocky’s Luke Skywalker, as Rocky called him the “director” of their crew. As Times report Jon caramanica wrote,

"Much of what you hear in Rocky — a fully assimilated take on hip-hop styles from across the country and from across time periods — can be traced back to Yams, who spent his formative years studying the genre, then learning how to transmit his taste to others. Hip-hop has long been obsessed with fealty to a specific place and time, and Yams’s vision of the genre as an open house, not a fortress, qualifies as a radical one."