40 Under 40: A$AP Ant

Baltimore. It’s a city perhaps known more as the setting for award-winning television shows than for the artists who call it home. Never mind Tupac’s brief stint living in B-more as a young teen. From every corner of the musical spectrum, including the city’s own long-standing, eponymous dance music genre known as “Baltimore Club,” Charm City is a launching pad, a channel and an approach that gives the local artists an all-encompassing perspective. It’s a unique freshness that also comes through in Baltimore’s cannabis culture. 

Just ask rapper, fashion entrepreneur and cannabis tastemaker A$AP Ant aka YG Addie. “We kinda north and we kinda south,” Ant muses. This statement describes not only Baltimore’s geographical and cultural disposition but also conveys how he got plugged in with A$AP Mob, one of the most impactful New York City rap crews of the last two decades. Ant’s seemingly small observation is in fact rather loaded and brings his musical perspective to the table without skipping a beat. It’s part of what helped make the Mob and its affiliates—especially Rocky and Ferg—such a relatable crew in a moment when Southern-style beats took over the radio so heavily that it felt like East Coast rappers didn’t stand a chance. But the Mob disproved that with a vengeance. 

Ant, born Adam Kirkman on January 29, 1993, brings his progressive musical style to cannabis as well. He shares his gradual evolution as a smoker from puffing street weed in his youth to his current favorites sourced from a handful of brands and cultivators such as Shopping Carts, Mount Burnin and more. But his story isn’t just about what he’s smoking on; it’s also about how he likes to roll up. “You can’t forget that. For real,” Ant says [laughing].

See, the DMV (DC, Maryland and Virginia for short) isn’t just Ant’s home; it’s also considered by some to be the birthplace of “sheets and funnels,” one of the most interesting regional rolling styles in America. A quick look at Ant’s catalog of songs, including “Sean Taylor” [2018], “No Clout Chasin” [2019], “The God Hour” w/ A$AP Rocky [2022] and “Chemical Warfare” [2023], reveals this singular rolling style referenced numerous times throughout his work. Ant’s frequent discussion of sheets and funnels speaks to the role he’s played in its popularization and also his insights on its possible origins. 

When asked to impart some knowledge on the subject, there’s two things Ant is eager to share: “First of all, sheets and funnels didn’t start in Baltimore,” he says. “It’s actually a DC/Maryland thing.” This is where he picked it up, though he can’t quite pinpoint whether Northeast or Northwest DC is the place the style was truly born. He also shares one key fact that explains why Ant was making stoner field trips to DC in the first place. “In Baltimore, we got weed,” he says. “But you really got to go to DC to find some fire.”

Ant’s embrace of sheets and funnels pushed forward a weed-smoking trend occurring all around him. “Baltimore was stuck on Strawberry Phillies and Chocolate Cigarillos,” he says. “Now, all of Baltimore is smoking on sheets and funnels. I damn near put the whole world onto sheets and funnels.” 

And it’s true, Ant has, in some ways, become a de facto mayor of this style. His collaborations with influential MCs including OhGeesy, Curren$y, Larry June, Roc Marciano, J. Worthy and Boldy James are all impressive testaments to his relationships in music, but one particular interaction of Ant’s sums up the impact of rolling innovation and music: “RIP to my boy Takeoff from the Migos,” he says with reverence in his voice. “We was on a yacht in the Bahamas together and sheets and funnels was how he was smoking. We traded backwoods and some weed. It’s how we connected.” With sheets and funnels transcending regional boundaries, Ant shares his authentic DMV perspective on the best way to roll one up. He starts with a discussion of rolling paper, the “sheets” in “sheets and funnels.” His voice gets more focused as he begins to preach his gospel. “We only use Bambu papers; any other papers are bullshit,” he says. “The Bambu paper is going to hit the best because it hits like a blunt.” And of course, a proper sheet is nothing without proper funnels.

Several brands are selling pre-ground funnels, but that’s not how the OGs do it, Ant clarifies with authority. “Funnels is just dried up fronto,” he says—and the true funnels experience starts with freshly sourced fronto. For the uninitiated, fronto is a fresh whole tobacco leaf that many smokers use as an upleveled alternative to a Backwoods-style tobacco leaf wrap when rolling a blunt. But transforming the fronto into funnels is part of the magic. “You gotta dry the fronto leaf out. You can leave it in the sun, or on your car dashboard or you can put it in the microwave for 10 seconds,” he says. “Then, you crush it like you crush weed, you mix it in and you roll that baby up.” That’s the ultimate sheets and funnels experience, A$AP Ant style.

Now that folks across the country are getting clued into rolling sheets and funnels, it’s fitting that cannabis became fully legal in Maryland last year, bringing it up to speed with the East Coast Green Wave. With this change Baltimore’s smokers will not only adapt to new ways of buying and selling weed, but also how they roll up. Keeping this in mind, Ant says he’s focused on a variety of exciting upcoming projects while continuing to promote his Postlude album.

So, how does weed impact his creative process? “I could go without the weed,” Ant says. “But weed just stimulates your mind.”