A$AP Rocky on Rihanna, Virgil Abloh, and Blurring the Gender Lines With Fashion

Eh, ASAP Rocky here,

and this is Vogue Life In Looks.

Take one.

[mellow hip-hop music]

Ah, that s a classic right there.

I see somebody that s just concerned with marijuana, man.

Well, when I first got my first record deal,

we rented out this apartment,

we called it The ASAP Stash House, right?

And we would just do freestyles there all day.

And Brock, he was an aspiring photographer.

He was, he was always like

shooting thrasher and skater stuff.

We always had an American flag upside down,

hanging on the wall for like just stress and stuff.

He just was like, Bro, just stand in front of it.

It was a couch.

And I was just smoking, like fuck it.

And now you got what I m inhaling.

So Yams and myself decided we was going to do this

and pay homage to like Outkast,

different people with the American flag.

In 2011, everybody used to wear like pyramid rings,

and it was a lot of like Egyptian iconic symbolism.

Black scale was no different.

What I really loved was like the flat signature bars.

And it just said Black In Scale.

Here we are about like 14 years later.

And this is,

this is the new version of that idea right here.

Now we got the Don t Be Dumb.

When it came to pesos, we actually hired Aptean.

He s a phenomenal director.

And we just couldn t afford anybody to actually shoot

a video for us because we was up and coming and unknown.

He agreed to fly out to do it for cheap.

Granted it was about 14, 15 years ago,

but I hated the idea that he came with.

I was like, Bro, listen, you gonna just basically

capture what feels like a day in the life.

You know. Just follow us.

Watch us when we chilling on this block, that block.

So he chilled with us for a few days,

just captured what we do on a regular.

And in between that I would just do performance scenes.

So it just felt real organic.

This picture is a screenshot from the Fashion Killa

that Virgil Ablo directed along with myself back in 2013.

I just liked the rawness,

and just anything that felt like authenticity.

I just hit up the fliest chick I knew.

I was like, Yo Riri, what s good?

You gonna do this video with me?

I got the perfect song.

It s called Fashion Killa.

I m basically talking about you.

I dropped your name in it and all.

I ain t even have to say all that.

She was like, Gang, I got you.

She knew she was my boo back then too.

I m gonna come clean.

Working with Virgil was easy.

We were kindred spirits.

I think that him being in the position he was in,

it was inevitable for him to do great things.

This is one of those things,

and I feel blessed that I can actually say that,

and I got to work with him.

LSD 2014. We shot this video in Japan, Tokyo.

We was in Shibuya.

I was just walking through Tokyo,

and all the colors were vibrant,

and coming at me and stuff,

and it was heavily inspired by Enter the Void.

And we just tired to recreate our version of that.

And I m rocking the Dries zip bomber.

I also got on a undercover t-shirt tucked in

to a pair of Raf Simons denims,

a chrome hearts belt,

one of one Alexander Wang boots

that I wore too much back then,

cause I used to love them boots.

This is 2017, this is at the Dior show

while Chris Van Nash was still living,

creative director for men s,

he invited us out there.

From there on, we developed a relationship,

we supported his shows, his collections,

and showed up, and he supported us as well.

And it was just very organic, man.

Rihanna and myself,

we were the first black people

to be the face of Dior.

I m blessed truly,

and I m fan of everybody

who pre-dates me in my career.

I m just blessed to be in this environment.

You know, it s truly a blessing,

and I don t ever take that for granted.

Ah man, y all play too much.

I ain t gonna lie, they roasted me on the internet for this,

but this outfit was kind of fire if you think about it.

Nah, I was wildin .

Alright, so this is 2017.

So I remember years by outfits.

You could tell me,

Yo, remember that day we went to the store and da da da.

What did I have on?

When you tell me, I ll remember.

This is a crazy outfit.

And I gotta explain myself right now.

This is nuts.

All right, so this is a Balenciaga

puffer bubble life jacket.

For the life of me,

I don t even know why I bought this,

but I was driving in Milan,

and we was driving past the Balenciaga store and I saw it.

And I knew that I had those funky,

yellow Gucci pants right there.

And I was just like,

You know what? That ll match.

That s my Flavor Flave era right here.

You know what I m saying?

Like it was tacky but fly, you know what I mean?

And those are some Prada shades

that I had got from the outlet.

That s a Gucci sweater from Alessandro.

And those are Gucci windbreaker pants.

And those are some really long Gucci socks on.

I don t know what the is going on

with this outfit to be honest with you.

Can we turn this fuckin page?

Ah, my man, Matt, did his thing this day.

All right, so look.

All right. So this is 2018,

and this is New York City, Calvin Klein Raf show.

This is a oversized cashmere sweater,

Calvin Klein like Parka jacket

with just different multicolor layers and different furs,

like this Parka was sick.

You know, this is one of my favorite,

like collections of Raf at Calvin.

What I like about Raf is the significance

of what he meant to me and my crew.

A lot of his collections just,

it dealt with like the growing pains

of becoming a teenager and transcending into an adult.

So a lot of his collections dealt with like rebellion.

We were rebellious,

we were rebels when it came to fashion

because we kind of like,

we colored outside of the lines,

and we kind of made our own rules.

Check this handsome fella out.

Get a load of that guy.

The funny story about this whole suit right here

was Jonathan Anderson,

who was the creative director at Loewe,

every time I would visit him,

let it be a showroom or factory,

whatever he had going on,

he would have like, sort of like disposable pieces.

And he would let me look on a rack at like,

anything that I liked out of the disposable pieces,

and see if it was what I wanted.

And this happened to be one of them.

I m not sure if he actually made that.

Maybe he changed his mind after this picture came out.

But the paisley just stood out to me,

and I was like, Yo, let me get this, gang.

Yeah, let me get this one.

I love it. I love it.

[ASAP Rocky laughs]

Yo Matt was totally against this suit,

this whole babushka era,

until he realized the significance of it, right?

Like he was like,

All right, you on something, bro.

You on something. This was a daring fashion statement.

I chose to embrace, you know, being a grandma s boy.

Got my babushka go on,

got my nice Gucci suit on.

This is 2018.

And this is at the Gucci LACMA in Los Angeles, California.

Yours truly with the babushka on at the top, you know.

And I m a firm believer in like,

you can t really use clothes as like masculinity anymore.

I think those lines are blurred as well.

So I like to play with that.

And I thought it was unfair

that guys couldn t wear

a silk scarf on they head with glasses.

How come only women was limited to that?

Fuck that. We stole it.

Give people just a different outlook on something.

You know, make people think for a second like,

Huh? That s kind of cool what you did there.

You know. Right? We should be able to wear

glasses with silk scarfs, man.

Shout outs to Iman.

This is vogue.

This shoot was amazing.

I remember it being really hot,

and we were on the beach,

and these motherfuckers made me put a puffer on.

I was sweating bullets that day.

I was just like out all night the night before.

I left straight from like the club.

I had went to a hospital for a little bit,

and then I came straight there to my shoot.

And when I got there,

Kitty Cash had the music popping.

The vibe was right.

Iman had good energy.

I mean, Matt was in a good mood for a change.

[ASAP Rocky laughs]

Pictures came out dope though, right?

They look, they look fire, right?

Why you did the one where my leg is all,

like I m fixing my pants.

You coulda showed the one where my swag was on 10.

Don t do me like that, bro.

This is one of the best fits I ever did.

2019, it s the Clive Davis Grammy pre-party.

Well, this 2019 ain t it?

As you can see, I got the good pearl rings on,

nice manicure.

Yeah, I was just basically telling them like,

I m the best video director ever.

The Grammys need to give me a Grammy.

For all the videos I did in the past that I didn t win for,

I think they need to go back and just fuck it.

Just give me Grammy s for em.

Cause I think I m the best video director.

Yeah, I said it.

I love this one.

This is the Loewe show, 2019.

Jonathan Anderson gave me some of the

coolest fashion advice, you know, in my time.

I pick his brain from time to time when I can,

whenever I get to speak to him.

What I like is that he supported us

in the early, early, early stage.

2014, 2015, we already had collaborations

with Aug and JW Anderson.

It was always organic.

He s fun, he s crazy as shit, as you can imagine.

Bro, look how we was giving it up in 2019, bro.

This outfit so fly, I thought it was 2021.

Like, you know what I m saying?

Like this is crazy.

Two, zero, one, nine.

At the time I was challenging everybody

to like go from skinny jeans to the big,

oversized baggy jeans at the time.

That was the trend that I always wanted to like bring back.

It felt so, it felt so me.

My love for bags is more of a recent thing.

You know, I ve always had bags,

but now I actually have an incentive.

It is not a purse, it s a satchel,

but you can call it a murse,

or whatever floats your boat.

We got stuff to put in bags.

I shouldn t have to carry around my phone,

my brush, my comb, my chapstick, like nah.

Put that in the bag.

Look at us now.

Fellas, we holding it down

with our murses and our satchels, you know.

Man, DMB. Rihanna s standing there right next to me.

This look was cool,

but I started to like kind of like love/hate this scene,

cause I kind of feel like

I jinxed myself when I was going

in and out of the fucking penitentiary so much.

So let s go to the next one.

Two thousand and twenty mother fuckin one.

I m gonna tell you how this all played out.

So we went to, you know,

go to the ERL showroom,

the designer had a couple of clothes pulled out for,

you know, me and Matthew to check out,

and on the couch was just

this beautiful Captain Crunch looking quilt.

And it was just like calling me.

I was like, Alright, this is cool and all that,

but what s up with that quilt, bro?

He was like, Oh, okay.

We could talk about gettin you one,

but look, here s the big...

Nah, what about that quilt?

And the significance of us popping off

such a new designer like that,

supporting him and wearing him

to somewhere like the Met Gala,

and puttin him in the avant-garde space,

I think was so phenomenal.

I think that the quilt was an exceptional piece to it

because it just shows some type of humility.

I m cozy as shit, so, we go how we go.

If it was up to me, I d have,

I d have kept the coat on all night.

Thank you for making black excellence the,

you know, the theme of Met Gala this year.

I m so glad to be a part of it.

And the timing [snaps fingers] was perfect.

You know, where I am, and my elevated style,

and my preference right now is very evolved.

It s very much embodies,

encompasses me as who I am, in this very period.

And it s been a very, very long walk up the hill.

But here we are at the top, and I m so glad.

Like I said, I m so blessed, and I m happy.

This is the reveal of our pregnancy, 2020.

All right, January, 2022.

Don t let my girl see this, cause that s fucked up.

[ASAP Rocky laughs] My girl, even though like,

she s from Barbados,

she look like a Harlem chick to me right now.

She look like she from the BX,

she look like she braid hair on the weekends.

My girl, she rocking that pink with them denims,

and she got her jewels just going,

and she looked so pretty and happy, you know.

We were in Harlem, New York City,

and we wanted to reveal that we were having a child,

first child, Rizza.

We re human. Every now and then

we need some type of privacy.

I appreciate the fact that

there were no leaks or this or this and that.

And people allowed us to give them

the information when we were ready

to give em that information.

And I think that s how it should be.

She thought it would be the best place

to do it in my hometown.

And right after this,

we went a few blocks in my grandma s house,

ate some food and fell asleep.

Okay, nice. This is 2022.

I think Virgil was special because his influence,

his inspiration, it s vicariously living

through all of these kids today.

I love the fact that he kicked down

doors for a lot of people for a long time.

It was almost like, you know,

our culture wasn t really acknowledged,

or it was always like a secondary kind of thing.

Him leaving his print in history was very significant.

Now we actually have a black musician artist

that is the head of Louis Vuitton Men s

at this current moment.

Virgil was always giving.

He ll give you like the shirt off his back.

Especially if he designed it.

You know what I m saying?

Creativity was always key.

It was always first.

And my morale is just like that.

I put creativity first above everything.

You can t compromise creativity.

And he was one of those kind of guys

that actually advocated for that.

Virgil meant, he means the world to the world,

and I can only assume.

And for me, we love him, we miss him,

and rest in peace, you know.

Yeah. Why my son cheesing so hard though?

Like baby Rizza cheesing.

This is 2022, right?

[Interviewer] This is 23, right?

You bullshitting. What the fuck did I just do?

What did I just do?

I think becoming a father helped me

just get my dad swag bag.

I m really on that.

That s what I do.

I m on that dad swag.

I love it. It stepped me up, honestly.

Like I could justify doing things

like not going to the club,

or just leaving after five minutes and shit like that.

Doing old people, you know, just for the sake of it.

I act tired and I don t even be tired.

I m, Oh, my back hurt. Let me sit down.

Dad swag on full, and they can t with me, man.

It was the first photo shoot we did with Baby Rizza.

And he was delighted and thrilled

to be there as you can see.

I m an idiot.

It literally says March, 2023 right here, man.

This is crazy. I love this.

I fuck with Karl. I liked his elegance.

And sometimes I just be embodying that spirit.

It s just paying homage to his look

at one of the shows that he did.

We kind of wanted to exaggerate the kilt a little bit

so it could feel more grand.

I was just like, Man, I m going full throttle today.

Like, We gonna do one glove,

we gonna do some Michael Jackson shit.

You know. We gonna have all of the belts like Karl.

On some Tizzano shit.

This outfit, it s a lot going on,

but it s actually well put together, yo.

This is dope.

This is when over accessorizing goes right.

This is how you do it.

[Interviewer] There was a moment when you you jumped the,

jumped the fence.

[ASAP Rocky laughs]

Can you talk about that?

Why were you there?

I was trying to get into my room.

I was gonna be late for the Met Gala.

I was trying to get in my room,

and this poor, young little lady, man,

I didn t even know that I messed up her glasses.

To the, whoever that young lady was, again, I apologize.

I m so sorry. I ain t mean to do that sweetheart.

My fault. This is pure buffoonery, and I love it.

You got the all Pavé Mateo pearls in the head,

Pavé Mateo pearls on the glasses.

You got the pearls on the neck,

you got the Pavé Mateo AK-47 ring,

All American sabotage bulletproof vest t-shirt on,

with the Pavé Mateo riot belt buckle on.

That outfit is a fucking 10 out of 10 my friend.

I come from a place where it s just like,

you can get a ticket for sagging your pants,

and they could just stop you.

And that s probable cause.

So this whole stop and frisk like law

started getting outta hand.

I kind of wanted to make a mockery of that.

Imagine a police officer wrongfully

pulling you over for sagging,

but your jeans are just made like that, right?

Can t lie. My skin glowing right there.

This is probably one of the,

the most happiest moments in my life.

Just to see all the models just, you know,

come off the runway from a collection

that we all worked so hard on.

Everything happened exactly how I wanted it,

and that never happens.

You know, most people could tell you.

For my first show,

I was so pleased and satisfied

with how everything turned out.

Stay tuned. We got something really,

really special coming up in the works right now.

All of these things that are happening to me right now,

I ve been praying on and working on for a long time.

To be on the cover, shooting where I m from in Harlem.

I m the first dude to bring Vogue to Harlem.

That s crazy. That s nuts.

That s all I gotta say.

I ain t got nothing else to say.

Thank you. Yo Vogue,

it s the prettiest motherfucker ever, your boy,

ASAP Rocky, and I m signing out.

Thanks for having me.

[mellow hip hop music]

I ll see y all next time, man.

Peace.

[mellow hip hop music continues]