Rakim Mayers, better known as ASAP Rocky, has stood for innovative underground rap with the New York hip-hop collective ASAP Mob since the mid-noughties. His mixtapes and later promotion of Kendrick Lamar propelled him to the top. Due to his relationship with world star Rihanna, he was under VIP scrutiny on the international gossip sites. Now he ended up in the clutches of the police – again.
ASAP Rocky had visited his heavily pregnant girlfriend Rihanna in her home on the Caribbean island of Barbados in a private jet. Upon returning to LAX on Wednesday morning (April 20), the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was ready. There was an arrest warrant for “bodily harm using a weapon”. The crime is said to have occurred in November 2021 in the Hollywood area.
The LAPD has previously announced that a dispute among acquaintances escalated when a firefight broke out. One victim was slightly injured. With two companions, Rocky would have hastily walked away from the crime scene.
ASAP Rocky was slightly injured in shooting
The tabloid platform “TMZ” documented the arrest in detail as well as the subsequent house search, during which a cardboard box with incriminating evidence was removed. “TMZ” learned from legal circles that three to four shots are said to have been fired. Rocky himself would have suffered a scratch on his left hand in the affair.
The day after the November 6 evening incident, ASAP Rocky again performed an acclaimed concert in Long Beach, watched by Rihanna. According to the Los Angeles Times, the judge in charge set bail at $550,000, about €507,000.
Arrested again and again
For ASAP Rocky, the alleged Hollywood shooting isn’t the first massive legal run-in. In 2019 he was in custody in Sweden for more than four weeks because he and two companions had beaten up a man on the street in the capital Stockholm. However, he was spared a lengthy prison sentence.
Also because the then US President Donald Trump had campaigned massively for him and even sent a special representative to the local district court. After the final decision, Trump tweeted at the time, alluding to his name, which also means “as soon as possible”: “It was a Rocky Week, get home ASAP A$AP!”