August 2019 | Rolling Stone | 19
THIS SPREAD, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: © HENRY DILTZ, 3; © DAN GARSON; © HENRY DILTZ, 4; © TOM MINER/TOPFOTO; © HENRY DILTZ
the rapper says art was “a big part” of his
dad’s life. After he started rapping at age 12,
friends started calling him A Boogie after
Ace Boogie, the character played by Wood
Harris, in the 2002 cult classic Paid in Full.
His parents moved to Florida when he was
a teen, but he stayed behind to go to school
in New York — until he got busted for weed
and his parents made him join them down
South. That turned out to be for the best.
After arriving, he met a local producer, who
brought him into a studio for the first time:
“ ‘Damn, I never knew I could sound like
this,’ ” he remembered thinking in 2017.
“It was just magic.”He always wrote about heavy topics: “No
Promises,” the first song on his first album,
recalled an early show where a female con-
certgoer was accidentally shot and killed. A
Boogie said the sadness in his music “comes
from the pain in me. I let it come out when
I’m in the studio.... You always gonna feel
me. That’s my main thing.”
A Boogie says he’s feeling more upbeat
these days. He’s a father now — influencer
Ella Rodriguez gave birth to their daughter
in 2017 — which was a surprise he’s taking in
stride. “You can’t ever say you’re not ready,”
he says. “Most people in life wasn’t ready
— I’m in a better position than most peopleto have kids.” He’s been keeping an eye on
his money more than he used to when he
first got signed, when he spent too much on
jewelry and clothes. “I was overexcited and
was spending a lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta
money,” he says. He now has homes in two
states: “New York is one of them.... The
other one is private.”
For all his success, A Boogie lacks the
fawning coverage and name status of his
commercial peers. It doesn’t bother him:
“Most artists have the same stage where you
have to climb up the hill. Once you make it
through there, it feels so much better. No-
body can tell you nothing.” CHARLES HOLMES“I don’t
think they’re
taking my
style. I have a
really, really
unique style,”
A Boogie says
of rappers
imitating
him. “Nobody
can really
copy that.”HELP IS ON
THE WAY
Woodstock featured
“freakout tents,”
where doctors
helped acid-trippers
calm down. “Kids
would be taken in
and talked to and
told, ‘This is gonna
pass, it’s not
forever,’ ” says Lang.
“After a couple of
hours, they’d be
cool and calm.”MUDDY WATERS
IN BETHEL
“I wasn’t aware of
[the mudslides] till I
saw the movie,”
says Lang. He
recalls “high school
kids from the Bronx
[mingling] with
hippies. When
segregation was
still tolerated... at
Wood stock, it didn’t
matter what color
you were.”WOODSTOCK WARRIORS
Clockwise from top left: Jimi Hendrix, who
played to a dwindling crowd of 20,000 on
Monday morning; the Who’s Roger Daltrey,
who said their set “made our career [and]
cemented us to the historical map of rock &
roll”; Joan Baez, who performed in the rain
while she was six months pregnant.HIPPIE HARMONY
Lang was worried about how locals in Bethel, New York, would
react to the hippies. “It turned into a big lovefest,” he says.LAW AND ORDER
“They’re the most courteous... well-
behaved kids I have ever been in contact
with in my 24 years of police work,” said
Monticello chief of police Lou Yank.