ASAP Rocky is about to hit the peak of his career — or have the worst year of his life.
The 36-year-old Brooklyn rapper and Rihanna paramour is set to drop his first solo album in nearly a decade and was announced as a co-headliner for Los Angeles’ Rolling Loud festival this March. The self-proclaimed “Fashion Killa” is also expected to serve as celebrity chair of the famed Met Gala in New York alongside LeBron James and Pharrell Williams, and he’s starring as the protagonist of a Spike Lee film expected to hit theaters and streaming services this spring.
But his success risks being derailed over the next few weeks if he’s convicted of a 2021 shooting in Los Angeles that could send him to prison for almost 20 years.
Jury selection began Tuesday in a trial in which Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, faces two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He allegedly shot at and wounded Terell Ephron, a fellow founding member of ASAP Mob, the Harlem rap collective that helped launch Mayers’ career.
Mayers has denied all wrongdoing, and his attorney, Joe Tacopina, has repeatedly attacked what he considers the weakness of the case in court filings and media appearances.
Nearly a dozen Los Angeles police officers responded to the scene of the Hollywood shooting in 2021 but found no evidence of a crime, according to court filings. Later, Ephron returned to the scene and recovered two shell casings, but there is no forensic evidence tying Mayers to the shooting and no eyewitnesses beyond the victim, Tacopina said.
Ephron’s injuries amounted to a graze wound, and Tacopina argued publicly for the first time Tuesday that the weapon involved was actually a “prop gun” that could not fire real bullets.
On Tuesday, prosecutors offered Mayers a deal that would see him receive a seven-year suspended sentence and serve only six months in jail, but the rapper rejected it. Mayers, appearing in a knee-length leather trench coat and a black surgical mask, seemed calm as he moved through the courthouse, stopping to thank a passerby for complimenting his jacket.
“The case against Rocky is fundamentally weak,” Tacopina said. “It relies on testimony from people who are not credible, and I believe the defense is very, very strong.”
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to comment on the strength of the evidence in the case.
Prosecutors allege Mayers shot Ephron, also known as ASAP Relli, after a heated argument over Mayers’ alleged failure to pay for the funeral of another founding member of their group.
Ephron denied being jealous of Mayers’ star turn when he testified at a preliminary hearing last year, but he also said virtually every member of ASAP Mob except Mayers is “broke or bums.” Several have died of drug overdoses since the group was founded in the late 2000s.
“You so f—ing fake it’s sad,” Ephron texted Mayers in October 2021, according to evidence presented in court last year. “Don’t ever forget who introduced you to this life … when I was at my lowest you looked at me like I was a piece of s—.”
Ephron later acknowledged that Mayers did pay for the funeral of ASAP Josh. A month later, Ephron was staying at Loews Hollywood Hotel when he woke up to missed calls from Mayers and two other founding members of the group: Illijah Ulanga, nicknamed ASAP Illz, and Jamel Phillips, known as ASAP Twelvyy, according to preliminary hearing testimony.
Mayers asked Ephron where he was and then sent a follow-up text reading, “Let’s get to it.”
The group eventually collided on Argyle Avenue near the W Hollywood hotel. In a clash partially captured by surveillance video, Ephron said, Mayers grabbed him by the collar, pulled a gun from his waistband and pressed it to his old friend’s chest, stomach and head. Ephron testified that he screamed at Mayers to shoot, but the fight paused as several people walked by.
Ephron said Mayers put the gun in his waistband and started walking away. Ephron then began screaming insults at Ulanga and Phillips while cursing at Mayers, saying he was “letting him know how everybody feel — because nobody’s brave enough to say how they feel about this man.”
In response, Ephron said, “Rocky turned around and shot me.”
Video of the incident appears to show Mayers holding a gun, but it does not capture the shooting.
At last year’s preliminary hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Przelomiec showed a picture of several of Ephron’s fingers skinned raw, apparently the extent of his injuries.
Ephron alleged that Mayers fired three or four shots. He said he later texted the rap star accusing him of trying to kill him. Mayers scoffed at the accusations and accused Ephron of extortion, telling him to “stop making s— up” and “call the police if i ‘shot’ @ u u weirdo.”
Ephron did just that two days later, walking into the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood station with two shell casings he said were from the scene, evidence the officers in that same division apparently failed to find.
Tacopina — who previously defended President Trump against a civil defamation suit from journalist E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of rape — has pointed to the fact that Ephron also filed a civil suit against Mayers, and has characterized the entire ordeal as a financial shakedown by Ephron.
On Tuesday, Tacopina said in court that he plans to argue that the gun involved in the incident was a prop and incapable of firing bullets.
“There’s a reason that 10 police officers searched and didn’t find shell casings there,” Tacopina said last week.
The most successful of his sprawling New York rap crew, Mayers vaulted to fame in 2011 with a style defined by suave braggadocio and self-mythologizing reminiscent of old-school legends such as Rakim and the Wu-Tang Clan. He quickly found commercial success, joining Kendrick Lamar as an opener on Drake’s 2012 arena tour. His next two albums, “Long.Live.ASAP” and “At.Long.Last ASAP,” debuted atop the Billboard 200.
In recent years, he has become a tabloid celebrity as Mr. Rihanna. The two artists went public with their relationship in 2021. In 2023, they welcomed their first child, RZA Mayers, followed by a second son, Riot Rose. Mayers seemed to have successfully transitioned into a wholesome dad with both underground rap and high-culture acclaim, including a famous 2023 Vogue cover that showed him and a pregnant Rihanna walking hand in hand down a beach while Mayers held their first child.
It is unclear whether Rihanna will attend the trial in support of Mayers. Tacopina referred to it as a “family decision,” and a representative for the “Umbrella” artist did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The trial is not the first time a run-in with police has threatened to jeopardize Mayers’ career. He was arrested in 2019 in Sweden after a man alleged the artist and his entourage beat him in the street in Stockholm. His jailing became a minor international incident, with President Trump tweeting, “Give ASAP Rocky his freedom.” Mayers was convicted of assault and given a suspended sentence.
The trial could also provide courtroom fireworks between two bombastic attorneys. Across the aisle from the brash and bruising Tacopina, who referred to his thick Brooklyn accent as “ridiculous” in court while talking to potential jurors Tuesday, the district attorney’s office added one of its heaviest hitters to the case in Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lewin, who won a murder conviction against infamous New York real estate scion Robert Durst in 2021.
Neither Lewin nor a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office would comment on the reason for his last-minute addition to the case. He had not been involved in the matter until Jan. 15. Charges were first filed against Mayers in August 2022.
A decorated prosecutor, Lewin normally handles cold cases for the Major Crimes Division but had been ostracized for years as he engaged in a bitter and public feud with former Dist. Atty. George Gascón. Lewin, a political ally of newly elected Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, recently settled a lawsuit against the county accusing Gascón of demoting him in retaliation for criticism of his policies.
“I don’t care,” Tacopina said, laughing when asked about Lewin’s addition to the case last week, and dared Hochman himself to try the case.
Times staff writer Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.
