The more they fumed and steamed, the more the video got played, and the more exposure A$AP Rocky got.
You could literally picture the heads of pundits exploding in frustration at the apparent double standard of V-Nasty being called on the carpet while Anna got a free pass. A$AP swears that “Anna” is just a crazy girl from Harlem he happens to be friends with, and we’re to infer that any girl from around his way he drinks and smokes with is just cool like that. Given the controversy about white female rappers like V-Nasty and Kreayshawn using the word “nigga” in songs and interviews in 2011, Rocky’s video came along at exactly the right time to be noticed by pen wielding writers looking to excoriate yet another girl perceived to be perpetrating a cultural fraud. Within seconds of the clip rolling, a young caucasian lass smiles happily into the camera, then proudly proclaims “This is fo’ my niggaz gettin’ high on the reg-u-lar” – showing off gold fronts on the lower half of her jaw in the process. By his account, it was this turn of fortune that made him decide to take rapping seriously, but that wasn’t what made his now famous “Purple Swag” music video go viral. It’s not hard to imagine anyone named after one of hip-hop’s most important and influential lyricists wanting to pursue a music career himself, but fame and fortune was just a dream back in the 1990’s when his older brother was killed and his pops got locked up for selling drugs in the span of a year. 2011 was the year the young Rakim Mayers b/k/a A$AP Rocky exploded onto the rap scene.