![JSWISS featuring Chandanie - LML [VIDEO]](https://www.birthplacemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/JSWISS-218x150.jpg "JSWISS featuring Chandanie – LML [VIDEO]")
Visionary leader of the ASAP Mob movement led to the rise and success of ASAP Rocky and others from the NYC-based collective
Multiple outlets and members of the ASAP Mob collective are reporting the death of ASAP Yams (Steven Rodriguez), often called the “visionary” leader of the music and fashion-oriented movement. The public face of the group, ASAP Rocky, posted a photo of Yams to Instagram, with the caption “R.I.P YAMS, I LOVE YOU BROTHER”
It is not immediately clear as to what caused ASAP Yams’ death. He was reportedly 26 years old.
ASAP Yams was the subject of a highly complimentary New York Times profile piece back when ASAP Rocky was rising to prominence on the music charts with his debut release Long Live A$AP.
At the time, writer 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.
It is his leadership, embracing of technology, and orchestration of ASAP Rocky’s early career that helped the Harlem-based Rocky and fellow Mob members including ASAP Ferg, break into the national scene.
We will update as more becomes known. In the meantime, we send our respect to the family and friends of ASAP Yams.