A$AP Rocky ‘s lawyers will make their case and try to establish a counternarrative Friday at his trial in Los Angeles, where the hip-hop star and fashion mogul is charged with firing a gun at a former friend on a Hollywood street in 2021.
They plan to call to the stand rapper A$AP Twelvyy, who, like both the defendant and the man he’s charged with shooting, was a member of the A$AP Mob, a group of young artists and creators that formed at a New York high school nearly 20 years ago.
Twelvyy was one of two members of the crew who accompanied Rocky to a meetup with A$AP Relli, with whom he had a long-simmering beef that came to a head, he said, when Rocky fired a gun at him.
Twelvyy is expected to testify that Rocky fired a starter pistol that only shoots blanks, which he carries as a prop for security. The defense contends that the phony gun answers many questions about the case, including why Relli only had grazed knuckles and no other injuries.
The potentially confusing set of “A$AP” names have become familiar to people in the courtroom, and most likely the jury, through the approximately three days of Relli’s testimony, which makes up the bulk of prosecutors’ case, rested on Thursday.
Rocky has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, and if convicted on both, he can legally get up to 24 years in prison.
