What’s poppin yall; just what and who are awge?
AWGE, which I used to pronounce aw-gee for the longest time is a collective started by
ASAP Rocky.
He has never officially said what it means or stands for and whenever any of the members
are asked their reply is the name “The first rule of awge is to never talk about awge”;
but someone has said that it means ASAP Worldwide Global Enterprise.
AWGE has a website and has released a ton of content since they first started but we
need to go back in time and see just when it started.
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The earliest I can definitively say that AWGE started or was revealed to the public was
in 2015 during the release of At Long Last ASAP.
Rocky would delete his entire instagram feed and then flood it with new pictures in a single
day that looked confusing if you were just scrolling through your own timeline but if
you visited his page you would see that the pictures came together in a nice fashion that
would become very popular on the platform and used by other celebrities like Jaden Smith.
The people behind this were one of the first members of AWGE; Robert Gallardo and Tan Camera
whose real name is Kimi Selfridge.
She was behind the photography and Gallardo was in charge of the creative direction of
that project.
Another member to rep the ring and lead the hype before AWGE was announced to the public
was Ian Connor; he would always shout it out and it’s logo would be all over his twitter
page.
At this point it just seemed like ASAP members or affiliates were referring to themselves
by a different name and nobody could tell the difference.
It wouldn’t be until about two years after in late 2016 and all of 2017 that we would
finally come to see some projects come out of the group known as AWGE; and by some I
mean a lot.
They produced so much content last year and some of it amassing millions and millions
of views.
Towards the end of 2016 ASAP Rocky announced that ASAP Mob’s Cozy Tapes Vol. 1 was finished
and in leading up to the release of the album he would give us the short 12min film directed
by AWGE in partnership with Red Bull called “Money Man” that is about an individual
who is trapped in a world of crime and just overall bad luck.
With two songs from the project and featuring appearances in the film from Skepta, Rocky,
and Nast.
The video was recorded by Dexter Navy, another member of the collective.
Guess and ASAP did their second collaboration in 2017 for their “Ice Cream and Cotton
Candy” summer collection and AWGE being the leading force behind the “ASAP Rocky
x GUESS Clubhouse” that was a pop up shop with some 90s inspired surfer house theme
and inviting some huge celebrities like Frank Ocean and Kendall Jenner with the rest of
the ASAP Mob also making their appearances.
In July; AWGE would again be behind a project but this time it was the music video for Playboi
Carti’s hit song Magnolia.
Fast transitions, changing perspectives, and seizure inducing editing was littered all
over this video and that same month Raf; the music video being an edited fashion show of
different Raf outfits by each of the featured artists.
August is when they would really turn up though.
Calling it AWGEST; the group would release a ton of music and leading up to the biggest
being ASAP Mob’s Cozy Tapes Vol. 2.
The group would release their website to the public with a forum and shop for merchandise.
Their site would be made like an old school TV and the navigation being that of early
windows like windows 97; and also being similar to an old video game machine like the atari,
a very nostalgic and retro feel to the entire website.
The forum would have different sections for different interests.
The merchandise sold almost immediately and it was the first time the people really got
a roster for who was involved in this group that was able to stay mysterious for over
2 years.
That same month they would launch an event called the midnight rave working with member
Shane Aveli owner of the brand midnight studios.
Midnight rave was an event on August 12th, 2017 in an abandoned LA warehouse and as the
name suggests, it’s a rave.
With DJing from Virgil Abloh and performances from the ASAP Mob with a release of a limited
edition collaboration shirt between OFF-White, AWGE, and Midnight Studios.
They would release the AWGE DVD Vol.1 which brought back nostalgia from days of the old
Smack DVDs and we would get behind the scenes of touring, parties, meeting up with different
rappers, and a handful of freestyles as well.
A movie about them just having fun really with the editing style that AWGE is becoming
known for.
In 2018 we’ve seen them work heavily on leading up to the release of ASAP Rocky’s
album Testing and the music video for ASAP Forever directed by Dexter Navy
and the AWGE logo being shown in the beginning of the video for Praise the Lord featuring
Skepta.
Dexter Navy has been working with ASAP Rocky going back to his LSD music video that got
the attention and love of millions back after the release of At Long Last ASAP and it seems
to me that he’s one of the most important and core members of the group.
Ben Baller seemed to be having a public issue saying f asap rocky multiple times after having
been their jeweller and getting awge tatted on his neck.
This was the result of the release of the AWGE DVD that released this year just a month
or two ago where ASAP Rocky is continuously making fun of Ben Baller which seemed light
hearted and joking but maybe it wasn’t.
Fashion, Music, Video, Art direction, at the end of the day we don’t know if AWGE is
a creative agency or just a collective of people that work together for one common goal.
One thing is for certain though and that’s that we will be seeing a lot more from them
and the mystery and intrigue that they bring to the table with a new form of entertainment
and releasing content in the rap sphere is something unique in today’s climate.
But lemme know what yall think in the comments; what the hell is awge to you?
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peace!