ASAP Rocky Helicopter video

On the heels of his absurdist video for “Punk Rocky” (featuring Tim Burton-oriented cameos from Winona Ryder and Danny Elfman), A$AP Rocky continues to keep it absurdist-but-with-an-even-darker tone for “Helicopter,” the second offering from Don’t Be Dumb (an album that features the song as “Helicopter$”). Directed by Dan Streit (who has previously worked with the likes of Major Lazer, Silk City and Charli XCX), the video reads like a dystopian day in the life of America. More to the point, being the type of person the proverbial They is after in America.

That the video opens with what is now considered the “retro” touch of actually listing out the artist’s name, song title, album and record label at the bottom lefthand corner is also telling, in its way, of wanting to return to a simpler time. When it didn’t feel as if anyone and everyone were subject to being “hunted.” With camera work designed to give the viewer the feeling of being spun around and around, the one “object” that stands out most during all of this spinning is the American flag. Things then come into focus as a helicopter flying outside a block of buildings than becomes drone-like in size to enter the apartment that A$AP is in, though there’s a few other “objects” in the abode that get focused on, including a, let’s say, “old-fashioned” TV turned to a channel called C.O.R.P. TV as the headline displayed reads, “Don’t Be Dumb Coming Never.” This being Rocky’s tongue-in-cheek allusion to how much buildup there’s been to the album, telling GQ in February of 2025, “I don’t think anybody wants to hear where I’m at with [the album], how far is it along and all that. They just want to hear some shit just to see where I’m at [the same goes double for his ‘wifey,’ Rihanna], and I promise I got some new shit in store. I’m challenging myself. It’s like anything, I approach it with a different tactic, degree or finesse.”

And the tactic he used to approach the visuals for “Helicopter” is one that intermixes “old school” aesthetics with the semiotics of the present: a police state. And there is no stronger symbol of the American police state than the helicopter. Constantly observing, stalking and waiting to report on “illegal” activity. Which, now, appears to include protesting. Thus, as the helicopter/drone continues to fly through the apartment, the viewer is given a snapshot at the various would-be protesters going about their preparations to engage in said “illegal” act (this includes playing video games, mapping out plans and doing some general cardio). Of course, the message A$AP might want to convey is obfuscated by lyrics that, as usual, serve as a flex about financial prowess—the very thing that has helped cause the United States to slip into such a dystopian state. Nonetheless, A$AP can’t resist starting right away with the boast, “Four, five hundred on the Hummer, no gas/Eighty-nine, price on the ticket, uh/Exercise, eat all my vegetables/Fuck up some decimals, he ‘bout his business/Stunner ‘bout the hundreds, got ‘em comin’ out fast.” And yes, there’s a punching bag filled with hundreds to prove it.

But then, his particular obsession with money is addressed with the line, “Nigga from rags to riches.” And it’s no lie, A$AP spent a large chunk of his youth living in homeless shelters with his mother and sister, so it’s only natural to be fixated on money/material as a result of never having it while growing up. Even so, A$AP can’t make it all about the Benjamins, then shifting to a scene of many women in a room wearing surgical masks and nothing else (if the blurred-out bodies are anything to go by) as they stack fliers that read, what else, “DON’T BE DUMB” while Rocky “oversees” it all (by standing atop a center table with a baseball bat). So it is that within the first minute of the video, Rocky and Streit (who co-wrote the narrative with the former) have made this operation look like a well-oiled machine despite its undeniable aura of rough-hewnness.

Just outside of the “headquarters,” it gets even more chaotic as an actual drone (as opposed to a helicopter that doubles as a drone), red laser and all, whooshes through the scene like the most hostile insect ever, only for Rocky to “swat” it away with his baseball bat before the next abrupt cut. To be sure, the jarring cuts and camera movements are paramount to maintaining an anxiety-inducing level of chaoticness throughout the video, complete with A$AP riding by in a mini pink car (serving a Barbie Corvette, Power Wheels edition vibe) as he raps, “I ride around in the all-pink Mercedes, the pussy whip” (not to be confused with a Pussy Wagon). Rocky then slips by a number of dressed-in-all-black federal agent types (clearly meant to look like S.W.A.T. and ICE) with a uniform logo that reads “C.O.R.P.” on the back. As he weaves through the streets in his “pussy whip,” these agents are also shown dragging people out onto the sidewalk, pissing on a lamppost and generally oppressing.

Thus, the massive turnout on the rooftop above as A$AP, the ringleader standing over everyone around him, waves his white shirt around in “helicopter mode.” This being a nod to, “obscurely” enough (for some, anyway), Petey Pablo’s 2001 single, “Raise Up,” during which he raps, “This one’s for North Carolina, come on and raise up/Take your shirt off, and twist it ‘round yo head/Spin it like a helicopter.” A$AP repurposes that chorus to “Take my white tee off, spin it like a helicopter/Take my wife beat’ off, spin it like a helicopter.” He then more glaringly alludes to his “source” with the line, “Fuck with young Pretty Flacko, I Petey pop you.”

Another scene of several protesters examining a “plan of attack,” as it were, is followed by Rocky being targeted by a series of drones against a bullet-riddled brick wall. The camera then finds its way to a series of screens that projects the U.S. National Debt amount over them in time with a number “C.O.R.P.” agents in front of it, a plausible reference to how much money is wasted on this type of government “endeavor” when, really, such cash could be used to fund so many other, better and more peaceful things. In an especially dystopian moment, a “C.O.R.P.” agent is shown standing in front of a ring light as he makes “content” of himself firing his gun, eliciting such comments on the giant screen in front of him as, “My taxes pay for this shit?”

Subsequently, the camera pans over to Rocky shouting from his megaphone inside a stolen C.O.R.P. helicopter that the agents try to shoot down. Naturally, they miss, allowing Rocky to be paraded over the city as he causes two cop cars to crash into each other before sailing over the massive protest crowd while continuing to wave his white tee (like a helicopter). The scene then circles back to the apartment shown at the beginning of the video as “C.O.R.P.” agents burst through walls and windows in search of their man.

Although the viewer soon sees him sitting in a chair where he could easily be apprehended, the disorienting, disjointed nature of the video then reveals another, let’s call it, “metaverse” iteration of Rocky still hanging out of a helicopter (shrunk down to miniature form before expanding again as it flies out the window). It’s this version of Rocky that the video concludes with, allowing him to fall to the concrete with a splat that quickly renders the pavement bloody. So no, even in a “stylized” (read: PlayStation-ified) dystopia, there’s not much hope to be had. Alas, Rocky appears to be reflecting the times (complete with fetishizing materialism during the apocalypse) rather than warning of what’s to come if certain changes aren’t made.