As part of efforts to promote his A$AP Yams Day event (January 18, 2017) at Madison Square Garden, A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg visited Elliot Wilson’s “Rap Radar” podcast to discuss the event and planned performances. After discussing Rocky’s wish to return to a place of prominence in rap, the group pivoted into Rocky’s interest in the fashion world.
While discussing style, Wilson brought up stylist/designer Ian Connor, who’s been accused of rape by multiple women, starting with then Emory University student Malika Anderson first went on the record with her experience with a blog post in April 2016.
Subsequently, multiple women, some of whom also went on the record, came forward and also stated they were raped by Connor. Despite the accusations, Connor was never prosecuted though Anderson and several other victims did file complaints with the police.
While acknowledging the topic as sensitive, Rocky dismissed what happened because Connor was never arrested. He concluded the women were simply seeking revenge because they felt disrespected by Connor for not pursuing a relationship after consensual sex.
“That’s my little brother. Fuck what the world gotta say. You feel what I’m saying? He’s a young visionary,” said Rocky, who then addressed the rape accusations, “I thought it was really fucked up. But one thing I will say is, you know, not to get on that topic too much because that’s a touchy situation that I would rather not talk about. How could you ever, we talking about what we talking about, you can’t justify it. Anything I say in the situation right now it’s not going to sound good so I guess it’d be best to skip it.
“Like, I’m not his lawyer like I said before. On top of all that, I feel like when you treat people mean and you do things like fuck girls and never call them back, you give ‘em a reason to be like, ‘Man, fuck this nigga. I hate this nigga.’ Most of them girls, if you realize, he never went to jail for that. Never been arrested. Never been charged. It’s all word of mouth shit. There’s evidence of girls talking about a week before they did this, talking about, ‘Oh, I’m not fucking niggas for free no more. I’m about my business this year.’ Pull the tweets up. Y’all know what it is. And this can happen to any of y’all. Be careful and treat women nice. And stay away from the thots!”
When asked about the scene at Colette in Paris where A$AP Bari was caught on camera punching Connor, supposedly in response to the accusations, Rocky again waved off the conflict. “Those are brothers with internal problem. When they ready to figure it out, they figure it out. They fought like four times that day. Like, it’s just brothers. Y’all just happened to see it. And I just think, like at the end of the day they men, they young men, and when they figure they want to get it together, they’re gonna figure it out.”
In a world in which women are viewed as less than and here to serve men, it’s sad, but never surprising when people use the passage of time to dismiss serious accusations as though they’re they were minor mishaps. After all, Americans just elected a man who boasted about sexually assaulting women.
That said, if you’re a person who’s been raped (including by Ian Connor), we believe you. And yes, Rocky, you should have skipped the topic altogether.
