With the arrival of the world’s most flying newborn and a new album on the way, our 2022 A $ AP Rocky summer cover talks about her “fairy tale with a touch of the street,” her Bajan legacy, and the influence of a generation of creative young people.
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It started out as a “fairy tale with a touch of the street,” says Grammy-nominated rapper and iconic A $ AP Rocky.
Rocky, 33, isn’t just referring to his 2013 trap hit, “Fashion Killa,” a tribute to the icy fashionistas in downtown New York City. She also refers to the star of her video: Barbadian pop superstar Fenty Beauty mogul and future mother of her son Rihanna.
The couple were only friends when they shot the music video, sometime after the US stage of Rihanna’s Diamonds World Tour ended (Rocky was the opening act). Rihanna had just moved into a penthouse in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood, where, under the direction of the late fashion-forward Virgil Abloh, she and Rocky walked hand in hand in front of a series of designer shops, with matching Supreme t-shirts: the best look of the day.
“Versace, she’s had a lot, but she may never wear it. , set the course. of their next decade together.
“I like to think the stars were aligned,” Rocky tells me optimistically over the phone from Los Angeles. At the request of a very pregnant Rih, whom she refers to almost exclusively as “my lady,” the couple just had a raver-themed baby party, where attendees marched in commemorative T-shirts reading, “I went at Rih & Rocky’s “. Rave Shower and all I got was this amazing t-shirt. ”
As Rocky sees it, there were indeed greater cosmic forces at stake in 2020, when he and the “Needed Me” singer consolidated their long-standing friendship turned romance. It never seemed more real than when Rihanna first brought Rocky to Barbados to meet her family and relatives of her late father, who emigrated from the island. “It was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had in my life,” he says.
Rocky was born Rakim Athelaston Mayers in the famous black enclave of Harlem, New York. At the age of 16, he found his home in the cluttered team of rappers, producers and street designers but with starry eyes known as the A $ AP Mob: Modern Bohemians in New York City. Founder Steven ‘A $ AP Yams’ Rodriguez, who died in 2015, gave the group its acronym, meaning its guiding mantra: “Always Strive and Prosper.” A soft-spoken Cheshire cat from an MC, Rocky became the group’s star player, before signing a $ 3 million record deal with Sony in 2011. He earned the rights to his distinctive bragging rights with his 2013 solo album, Long. Alive. A $ AP, and its 2015 follow-up, At. Llarg. Last. At $ AP, they both debuted at number 1 on the American Billboard chart. Rocky was soon selected to work with high profile designers such as Abloh and Raf Simons; he eventually founded his own creative agency, AWGE, and on his 2018 LP, Testing, performed sound experiments with people like Moby, Frank Ocean, Skepta and FKA twigs.
In the four years since his last LP, Rocky has been out of the studio and Zoom is making calls to close an album that he swears will be out soon. But with the arrival of the world’s most flying baby, Rocky is ready to embark on his strangest experiment to date: raising a family. 2022 marks a decade since Rocky got one of his first covers, courtesy of Dazed. Between his contribution to the most iconic body of living memory and his debut foray into the whiskey blend, Mercer + Prince, Rocky has grown a lot since he arrived on the scene. In an intimate conversation, he meditates on his Caribbean roots, his evolution as an artist and the future he wants to manifest.
Rocky wears all the clothes and accessories through EXQUISITE GUCCI and adidas × GUCCIphotography Brianna Capozzi Style Ibrahim Kamara
You spent a lot of time in Barbados with Rihanna. What is it like to know through your partner the place where your father was born?
A $ AP Rocky: Honestly, it was so amazing. There he had a family that just came up [to New York] once every five years, a family I only talked to on the phone all my life. Remember those one- and five-dollar calling cards? I was raised to know my heritage, but I missed the real experience. I couldn’t experience it until I was an adult. It was one of the most surreal experiences I have ever encountered.
How is your relationship with your Bajan heritage? Do you feel part of the Caribbean community in New York?
A $ AP Rocky: Caribbean culture is great in New York. We had J’ouvert [also known as the West Indian Day Parade] in Brooklyn, but we were all over the Bronx, Harlem, Queens. When I was growing up, my father, my aunts and all my cousins were all around Bajan. We all grew up together. I had the food, the story, the music – calypso and all that shit. The Bajan legacy is great as shit.
How do you like stump music?
A $ AP Rocky: It’s weird, but stump is a little too fast for me. I like my music to slow down, like Houston torn and twisted. I would have to cut and screw on some stump and calypso, which could be sick.
Rocky wears all the clothes and accessories through EXQUISITE GUCCI and adidas × GUCCIphotography Brianna Capozzi Style Ibrahim Kamara
Speaking of family and heritage, how do you see yourself as a parent? What kind of father do you want to be?
A $ AP Rocky: I will always remind my kids never to lose their imagination, even when they are adults, no matter what. In fact, I love watching cartoons: I’ve seen how, Teletubbies, Blue’s Clues, Yo Gabba Gabba, Peppa Pig and Baby Shark. I hope to raise open-minded children. Not people who discriminate. And I’m not trying to describe a saint, but realistically, I just want a great kid with great parents.
This can’t be difficult: you and Rihanna have already influenced a generation of creative young people.
A $ AP Rocky: It’s nice that we can even do that. Things like diversity and versatility are important and will be incorporated into the home.
When you left “Babushka Boi” in 2019, it seemed like a smart way to address the scars on your face and the scarves you wear; to me, it’s a song about working on your body image. How did you accept your scars and, as Tyra Banks says, “put it in fashion”?
A $ AP Rocky: I think scars are like war wounds, they just remind you where you come from and what you have to show for it. The average person does not look kind. There are plus size models, people now modeling heavy underwear. My lady hires them all the time. We all have scars or imperfections. I think sometimes your scars bring you back to reality. Adopt it. Make it work for you.
Rocky wears all the clothes and accessories through EXQUISITE GUCCI and adidas × GUCCIphotography Brianna Capozzi Style Ibrahim Kamara
I want to talk about the untimely death of your friend and collaborator, Virgil Abloh. You and A $ AP Mob inspired him a lot in his career, from his Off-White label to the Been Trill brand. What happened to him that was so inspiring to you?
A $ AP Rocky: Virgil was an oracle for many of us, black children and creative young people. Even if you take ethnicity or nationality out of it, it influenced so much culture, be it hip hop, fashion or Louis Vuitton. You can’t really tell the street clothes from high fashion right now. Look at Balenciaga, look at Hood By Air. He pushed all of us creatives to bring our ideas to the world, and [to not] take time for granted. Because if you left it to me, I would be working on a project for as long as it takes, be it months or years. We all assume that time is a fact, but it is not really promised. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. We needed someone like Virgil.
Virgil was also an expert curator. What makes something art is not just the raw expression, but the healing of it.
A $ AP Rocky: I agree! It’s all a matter of execution and healing. There is now an oversaturation of so many art forms. Like, someone can make a really nice painting, but if you do an exhibition in the gallery and it’s not well cured, it might look like shit! This also plays into music and movies; how you deploy them is part of the healing.
It’s been almost ten years since you and Virgil directed the ‘Fashion Killa’ video, with Rihanna as the co-star. It was more than just a music video, it was a mission statement for your environment of artists and designers in New York. Can you talk about making this video and its impact?
A $ AP Rocky: I was just touring with my lady, you know? We wanted it to feel like a love story, a fairy tale with a touch of the street. I expected my main lineup to be receptive, but with Virgil in the mix, his success was a no-brainer. I was also living in New York at the time.
“I think scars are like war wounds, they just remind you where you come from and what you have to show for it” – A $ AP Rocky
This was the time of the GHE20G0TH1K festivities, punk and hip-hop fusions in street fashion.
A $ AP Rocky: I miss those days. I was definitely a poster man for that. Streetwear, skateboarding, Raf Simons, Maison Margiela and shit. This was my skin age. It was an amazing time and it is still in my DNA.
I can’t help but think …