It turns out that, contrary to popular demand, A$AP Rocky and Rod Stewart will not be releasing a mixtape together. Rocky’s been all over the news recently, for a whole list of reasons; from controversial, headline-grabbing anecdotes from his sex life, to the release of his lengthy, impressive new album, and now, a supposed collaborative EP with the UK singer. Rocky kicked off the rumour in an interview with Vulture, where he joked, “Me and Rod Stewart have a mixtape coming out. It’s called Born to Be Pretty and it’s definitely a panty-dropper. Droppin’ this summer. You already know.”
The story spread like wildfire. Considering that Stewart had featured on the A$AP track Everyday, it wasn’t entirely impossible. The news eventually forced Rocky to put it to bed via social media.
THE ROD STEWART MIXTAPE WAS SAID AS A JOKE , AS FUNNY AND INTERESTING AS IT WOULD BE, UNFORTUNATELY, “BORN TO BE PRETTY” IS NOT REAL, LOL
— LORD FLACKO JODYE II (@asvpxrocky) June 4, 2015
But it got us thinking, what would Born to Be Pretty sound like? We’ve already got Rocky’s sampling of Stewart’s In a Broken Dream on his track Everyday to go off. And yea, that’s a pretty solid start.
So what else would make the cut? We decided to have a look back at some guitar & gangster collabs to see just what Rocky and Rod could do for each other. Firstly, I think that we would all hope it wouldn’t degenerate into something like this:
Maybe something a little more heavy, like this epic collaboration between Dinosaur Jr and Del tha Funkee Homosapien. Obviously with some sweet Rod crooning thrown in tha mix.
The jury is still out on Walk This Way. Sure RUN-DMC improved the Aerosmith classic and Steven Tyler sure has the raspiness that Rod definitely goes for, yet you can’t help having that brutal feeling that RUN-DMC could have made this their own without Tyler and… that cavernous mouth.
Finally there’s the multi-talented Debbie Harry, who chose to provide her own rap verses on Blondie track Rapture. Lyrics like ‘the men from Mars stop eating cars‘ don’t hold a candle to the work of Rocky, so we’re thinking maybe he and Rod could take it up a level. If they ever do, however, remains to be seen.