The album includes guest appearances from Frank Ocean, Kid Cudi, Skepta, French Montana, Kodak Black, Dev Hynes and FKA Twigs, among others, and was produced primarily by Hector Delgado and ASAP Rocky himself, alongside a variety of high-profile record producers.

[6][7] The cover of Testing features a photo by Houston-based creative director Cary Fagan, in which 10 shadowy figures surround a bold typeface logo.

[8] In January 2018, a series of non-album songs were released by ASAP Rocky onto SoundCloud, including "5ive Stars", "Above" and "Money Bags Freestyle".

The album's second single, "Praise the Lord (Da Shine)" featuring Skepta, was released to rhythmic and urban contemporary radio on June 26, 2018.

[16] Bansky Gonzalez of Consequence gave a positive review, stating "It's a welcome addition to a genre that has become so occupied with spacey, bare-bones operations and overly simplistic results".

[20] Dean Van Nguyen of The Guardian commented that Testing is "completely out of step with any mainstream rap album you're likely to hear this year", but "is a spottier affair" where "too many tracks minimise his strengths".

It does not have the earth-shattering impact of his genre-defining debut, nor does it have any one track with as much immediacy as, say, a 'Fuckin' Problems', but it is unequivocally his most thoughtful, most ambitious, and most rewarding project to date", praising the album's production, experimentation, cohesion and guest appearances.

[19] In a mixed review, online hip hop publication HipHopDX wrote that "There is no new movement birthed; there is no paradigm shift about the occur; it's simply as the title states: a series of harmonic evaluations meant to gauge audience reaction.

[24] Similarly, Stephen Kearse of Pitchfork believed there to be flaws in the experimentation, writing: "Rocky is enamored with collision.

"[27] Kevin Ritchie of Now believed that "Testing's title might suggest experimentation, but it delivers more on tentativeness, with a smattering of solid songs mixed into aesthetically interesting but unresolved experiments", criticizing the lyricism and flows that "aren't as ambitious as the production".

Though songs like the gorgeous Frank Ocean collaboration 'Purity', or the darkly simmering 'Fukk Sleep' featuring FKA Twigs, take risks that push ASAP Rocky to new, exciting territory, some of the experiments that made it onto Testing could have been left bubbling over in the lab rather than weighing down the rest of the album".