A$AP Ferg Explains The Difference Between Albums & Mixtapes

by HHL Editors

A$AP Ferg's latest project Still Striving isn't setting the charts on fire.

Hits Daily Double only projects it moves 9-12k SPS in its first week, which is not good for an artist of Ferg's stature.

[Check the first week projections for Dave East and A$AP Ferg.]

Should we view those sales through the lens of Still Striving officially being a commercial mixtape?

That's hard to tell, as the line between album and mixtape keeps getting more blurry. Ferg did his best to address the difference on a visit to The Breakfast Club.

"Back in the days, when we was listening to cool mixtapes and all of that, it was over instrumentals and people's beats and stuff" Ferg said. "Basically, your own remix. But [Still Striving] is all original music. And we're selling it, so I don't know the difference between a mixtape and an album."
But then he was able to explain what he thinks the difference is.

I feel like, [a mixtape] is more artistic freedom," Ferg explains. "An album is so serious. With Always Strive and Prosper, my last album, it was so serious about my trials and tribulations, how I became A$AP Ferg, jobs I had before, all of that shit, but this mixtape was basically like an open door policy where I had, like, all my friends come and we just made music and had fun. It was, like, not so serious. We just wanted an excuse to party on the song."
What do you think of that explanation?