15 facts about A$AP Rocky you probably didn’t know

Rihanna, a popular Barbadian singer, actress, and fashion designer, is expecting a child with American rapper A$AP Rocky. While out in New York with the rapper over the weekend, the singer flaunted her baby bulge.

In an interview with GQ, Rocky, undoubtedly the Bad Boy of the American entertainment industry, described Rihanna as the “love of my life.”

Here are fifteen interesting facts about Rocky.

1. Rakim Athelaston Mayers was born on October 3, 1988 in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood.
2. Rihanna’s father is from Barbados, the island where she was born.
3. When he relocated to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at the age of nine, he began rapping.
4. His elder brother taught him how to rap, and he had the same twisted hair that Rocky eventually adopted.
5. His father was sentenced to prison for drug trafficking when he was 12 years old.
6. When the rapper was 24, his father died in 2012.
7. His brother was murdered in Harlem when he was 13 years old. Rocky was encouraged by the death to start rapping more seriously.
8. He grew up idolizing The Diplomats, a Harlem-based rap group. Additional influences included Mobb Deep, Three 6 Mafia, UGK, Run DMC, Wu-Tang Clan, and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony.
9. He spent his adolescent years wandering among homeless shelters with his mother and sister, peddling marijuana and crack cocaine.
10. Mayers spent two weeks on Rikers Island in 2006 for drug selling, sharing a cell with future rapper Casanova.
11. In 2007, he became a member of the A$AP Mob, a Harlem-based collective of rappers, producers, music video makers, fashion designers, and motorcyclists who shared similar musical, fashion, style, and art interests.
12. His tune “Peso” was released online in August 2011 and garnered rotation on the high-profile Hot 97 New York radio station within weeks.
13. He began dealing crack in the Bronx when he was 15 years old.
14. On August 31, 2013, A$AP Rocky allegedly smacked a lady at the Budweiser Made in America Festival. He was charged with “misdemeanor simple assault, a class two misdemeanor”. The case was dropped after a witness failed to appear in court.
15. In July 2014, the lady filed a complaint, claiming that she was still suffering from the effects of the alleged attack. Rocky claims he never touched the woman at issue and that she “should have known there may be trouble in place with that many people.”