“It’s not really about who did it first. It’s about who did it best.” — A$AP Rocky, interviewed by Amber Later for Perfect A$AP Rocky Zine.
It’s a bold move to title your debut album a declaration of longevity. Long.Live.A$AP (2012), A$AP Rocky’s first studio album after the successful mixtape Live. Love. A$AP (2011), asserted his and his peers in rap collective A$AP Mob’s eternality before their artistry had been fully put to the test of time. Thirteen years later and the claim that A$AP Rocky is here to stay has transformed from an unfounded boast to an indisputable truth. In addition to multiple classic albums in his repertoire, he has a burgeoning acting career, founded the multifaceted creative agency and clothing brand AWGE, and was recently made the first ever creative director of Ray-Ban. ‘I don’t do all these different endeavours just because I got to be the first at the top of the mountain and plant the flag,’ he told me. ‘Because it’s not really about who did it first. It’s about who did it the best. Everything I do is based off building legacy. That’s why I’m not so eager to just drop, drop, drop. I don’t do things to just try and stay relevant, or keep my name in the conversation. I try to do natural things, creative, ambitious things that really satisfy me.’ After showing two collections under the AWGE banner at Paris fashion week, taking on acting roles opposite Hollywood royalty and preparing for the release of a new album, Rocky’s name seems poised to rise to even higher levels of prestige and influence at a time in his career when most other artists would be struggling to maintain relevance and inspiration. Art, nostalgia, hope, dreams, legacy, devotion, truth, family – it’s all coming to a head.
“Because it’s not really about who did it first. It’s about who did it the best.”
When I called A$AP Rocky at his home in LA, he was relaxing in a yard wearing ultra-reflective Ray-Bans and similar pink foam rollers to those he had in for his Perfect photoshoot earlier that week. ‘This right here, this whole look is me at age 17, 18, 19, just leaving the beauty salon. This is the new vibe, bringing back just being out in the neighbourhood and seeing gangsters go to the beauty salon, come out, and keep the rollers in their hair for a day or two. I thought it was sick.’ Hot pink rollers were also an accessory seen throughout Rocky’s most recent (spring/summer 2026) collection for AWGE, titled ‘Obligatory Fashion’. The ‘new vibe’ he’s referring to here builds on the themes of that collection, exploring the relationship between high fashion and everyday life, and toying with how a person’s clothing can both obscure and expose their identity. For Rocky, there isn’t such a neat divide between how we dress and who we are.
‘Obligatory Fashion’ interrogated the tensions between dressing for society and dressing for ourselves. After his recent much publicised trial where he was accused (and ultimately found not guilty) of assault with a firearm, Rocky noted how the unique pageantry of a courthouse highlights the way every person plays a different role in society, as signified by their respective costumes. ‘My trials and tribulations are literally what inspired the last collection. I remember being in the halls waiting for court, and I would see so many different people. What I was trying to get across with “obligatory fashion” is that everybody I saw dressed in that courtroom, it was like they had to be dressed that way. A lawyer will wear lawyer attire. I saw a construction worker come through in uniform. He was late for his job but he had to pay a ticket off first. And then a woman coming in for child support stuff. I try to include all these different experiences, but still bring it into my world. I had female attorneys and secretaries and lawyers and just people. My version of the baby mama, or my version of the construction worker, going down the aisle all at once.’
At the core of this perspective is a paradox within the concept of a uniform. On one hand, a uniform is meant to distinguish, to set apart an individual or group of individuals as having some allegiance or identity which can be easily and immediately identified. ‘It’s almost like when you think about a cartoon character, like Doug Funnie or SpongeBob, how it’s a repetition of just the same uniform all the time. So you associate that silhouette, that look, with a certain person.’ On the other, uniforms homogenise. They erase individuality in favour of group cohesion, eliminating visual differences and encouraging people to be identified as part of a group, often as a tool of control. In his first AWGE collection, titled ‘American Sabotage’, Rocky juxtaposed the logo for the New York Police Department with an alternative reading of ‘NYPD’: ‘Now You’re Public Domain.’ ‘I had a few models walking around with the police uniform, but it was just pieces that you could wear in everyday fashion, everyday attire,’ he explained. Why does a uniform confer respect onto some and disdain onto others? By reworking the iconography of government institutions into civilian outfits, it calls into question why that iconography is associated with power, and how that power is channelled and wielded in everyday life.
Face masks, military uniforms, plainclothed ICE agents, repressive attempts to ban keffiyehs at campus protests; rules and regulations determining how people dress and represent institutions has been a crucial topic in contemporary political discourse. Tension between the individual and the collective is one of civilisation’s eternal political struggles, but lately it’s felt especially relevant amid rising waves of global hatred. Even the location for the ‘Obligatory Fashion’ runway show, the United Protestant Church of the Star in Paris, reverberated with friction between difference and homogeny. As a Christian institution, the church symbolises a global network of enormous influence; as a Protestant church, it also stands as a singular anomaly in predominantly Catholic France. Staging the show in a church was another way of interpolating Rocky’s experiences inside a courthouse. ‘Back in the days,’ he explains, ‘a lot of the stuff now handled in courtrooms was handled in churches. If somebody did something bad, if they thought someone was a witch or something, they would all congregate in the church and decide a verdict, whether you were going to get hanged or get your head chopped off or whatever – sorry to be so vulgar and explicit.’ Rocky described the location as ‘nostalgic, modern, and futuristic all in one’. Every detail supports the overarching themes of his work just as every great river leads to an ocean, but he is also resistant to providing so much context that people can’t formulate their own hypotheses. He encourages his audience to come to their own conclusions about his work, viewing a refracted image as an essential part of legacy building. ‘People always say art is subjective, and sometimes the viewer has his own depiction or assumption of what you meant or were trying to convey,’ he said, ‘and that leads to different stories, and legends. I’m all for it when it comes to that.’ On the AWGE website, the ‘about’ section simply lists two rules. One: never reveal what AWGE means. Two: when in doubt, always refer to rule number one. What initially struck me as a cheeky way of arbitrarily cultivating mystery now seems to me a symbol of Rocky’s overall approach to creative output and interfacing with a public audience. As always, he’s left no aspect of his presentation or aesthetics overlooked.
Confident as Rocky is with his own creative direction, he’s also a trusting collaborator in the right hands. Recently, he appeared in the film Highest 2 Lowest, acting opposite Denzel Washington under the direction of Spike Lee. ‘As a New Yorker, it was a dream come true to be between Denzel and Spike Lee. Their dynamic alone is just historical. So I’m honoured to be an honorary member of their legacy.’ The film is a loose adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 movie High and Low, which is itself based on the 1959 novel King’s Ransom by Evan Hunter, which takes place in a fictionalised version of Manhattan named Isola. In this sense, Lee’s decision to adapt the story in present day New York City is a return to the original source as well as an adaptation of Kurosawa’s work. The opportunity also signified a return of sorts for Rocky, who was familiar with the filming locations from his early life. ‘I lived in the Bronx for a long time in my life. I was always back and forth between there and Harlem. It was my old stomping ground. My brother used to live on 161 and Gerard Avenue, and that’s where we shot the film. Literally on my old block. It was just like déjà vu. It was actually fucking freaky, if I’m being honest. I remember getting on the train and doing shit like going to this Chinese restaurant that was still there, the same bodegas and stuff. It’s unexplainable.’ As time passes, what stays the same can be equally as surprising as what changes. For someone whose life has undergone such radical transformation as Rocky’s, it’s no wonder he’s most mystified of all by the former.
“As a New Yorker, it was a dream come true to be between Denzel and Spike Lee. Their dynamic alone is just historical. So I’m honoured to be an honorary member of their legacy.”
Though he first began acting in films 10 years ago, Rocky’s latest roles showcase a greater depth and dramatic scope to his ability. In Highest 2 Lowest, he plays the fledgeling rapper-cum-kidnapper Yung Felon, who attempts to extort a wealthy music business executive (Washington) out of 17 million dollars and a Cartier bracelet. As the story advances and the executive’s morals are tested, the audience is also asked to consider the desperate circumstances that might lead someone to want to enact vengeance on the wealthy. After some initial direction, Rocky still felt that ‘there were a few things the character needed to become more real’. From that point on, Rocky said that Lee ‘let me develop my character full throttle. They put me in the right environment that was familiar with a little nostalgia, and it allowed me to take the character to different places, and borrow stories from the people I was around growing up, and their circumstances. I appreciate that he [Lee] was receptive to all my changes for my personal character.’ The character of Yung Felon can at times be narcissistic, menacing, bitter and anxious, but only the coldest audience member could leave the theatre feeling total contempt toward him. It’s a function of Rocky’s innate charisma that an audience can feel for the ostensible antagonist of the film, even when his side of the narrative is given less of a focus than Washington’s character.
That charisma is given even more room to flourish in another of Rocky’s recent roles, the character Jamie in Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. When the protagonist Linda, an overworked mom with a very ill child, moves into a motel after her home is destroyed by flooding and a broken ceiling, she finds herself unlikely acquaintances with her neighbour, played by Rocky. Rocky’s presence on screen as the affable, no-stress foil to Rose Byrne’s hyperanxious Linda is consistently a welcome reprieve from the drama-comedy’s high-stress tightwire act.
Amid all of these ventures, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about what made A$AP Rocky famous in the first place: the music. On his early records, Rocky’s mesmeric flow and hazy, vaguely psychedelic production from frequent collaborators like Clams Casino make you feel like you’re drifting through a sea of clouds while listening, rising higher and higher into the ether. Since then, he has expanded his sonic range with the same rapacious curiosity and inventiveness that characterises his every move; his last album, Testing (2018), took its title partially from his desire to ‘test’ new sounds. That album’s biggest hit, ‘Praise The Lord (Da Shine)’, transformed a midi Andean panpipe sample from a generic Garageband ‘world music’ package into something unique and fresh. Rocky has a unique ear for identifying sounds at the exact cusp between the current zeitgeist and future trends, bridging the culture of today with his vision of tomorrow. Somehow, his flow is sturdy and unshakeable like a tall tree with deep roots, while also light and pliant like the wind that rushes through its leaves.
One passion begets another. AWGE, which also represents artists such as slowthai, Playboi Carti and A$AP Ferg, is a synthesis of music and fashion as opposed to an excursion from one into the other. ‘Sometimes it’s all about telling a new story, one that you never told. Maybe one that you got infatuated with, started researching… It varies, but for the most part, it grabs inspiration from the same place as when I’m writing a song or acting, because it’s all part of the arts. And you know me, I’m one of those versatile Renaissance men.’ The title of his upcoming album, Don’t Be Dumb, was teased early on by its incorporation into AWGE clothing.
“And you know me, I’m one of those versatile Renaissance men.”
Asked about his frequent use of text in his collections, Rocky cited his ‘fashion godfather, Raf Simons’, who ‘was never shy to throw a word or phrase on a garment. I adopted that from him. I come from the school of Raf, so that was a nod to my OG.’ Rocky is also interested in the ways certain insignias and logos can influence a consumer’s interpretation of different materials and textiles. ‘We all like a logo here and there every now and then, just to identify the pieces that you’re wearing and what separates them.’ He offered an example to illustrate how the literal construction of a garment transforms the context, and therefore meaning, of its constitutive materials: ‘If it’s a bulletproof vest, somebody might think we just went to a tactical gear, army and navy surplus store and borrowed a bulletproof vest. But when you stitch the bulletproof vest onto a T-shirt and it’s inseparable as one piece, and then you stitch words over it, people can identify it. Like, oh that’s actually a shirt and not a vest. Not a separate piece. Not some lazy army surplus grab.’
One senses that Rocky would never sign onto a project he wasn’t prepared to give himself over to entirely, so it’s a testament to his focus and commitment that he can take on so much while maintaining such an air of suave ease in conversation. ‘Everything I do, I take it seriously, and I get tunnel vision. So if I’m working on a film, that’s all I’m working on at the moment. If I’m working on an album, that’s all I’m working on. If I’m working on a collection, that’s all I’m working on. I try to give these things the same amount of attention, tender love and care. Nothing’s on the back burner. I don’t give anything 50 per cent, 60 per cent – I just try to give 99.9 per cent.’ Reflecting on why he specifically felt an alignment with Ray-Ban as their first ever creative director, he told me that ‘I wanted to leave my stamp. I think it’s genius; they’ve never had a creative director in history. They saw the potential – more than potential, they saw the greatness – in an artist such as myself who takes any kind of fashion endeavour seriously. It just made sense.’
Perhaps the reason A$AP Rocky has only grown in relevance and influence as his career progresses is because he ultimately does it all for the culture, not his own ego. A$AP Rocky’s creativity is a gift to the world, and it’s poor etiquette for a gift-giver to try and control how the gift is handled once it’s been passed to the recipient. His influence across culture all around the planet is obvious even when he isn’t being directly referenced or credited. ‘From being a pioneer, I’ve noticed that sometimes you knock down the doors and you allow somebody else to come and do it even better than you did it. And I think that’s the beauty in what we do in the world. We’re all here to create. Some people steal ideas from each other. Some people borrow. Some people take. Some people are original. They get it from themselves. Some people don’t even. Some people have too much of an ego to even take anything from anybody else.’
For each AWGE collection, Rocky has collaborated with and involved a variety of young designers and creatives (such as clothing designer Joshua Jamal, or Phillip Wong of the fragrance brand Hawthorne, who designed several textile patterns for spring/summer 2026), giving a platform to the next generation of artists. Asked about how he is able to stay in touch with the creative vanguard and youth culture given his celebrity status, he told me ‘I’m a sponge. I need to soak up ideas and new things. You don’t get that by staying in a bubble all day. Sometimes I’m in my bubble, but I walk around. I’m in New York, I’m in Paris, I’m in Milan, I’m with the youngins. Those are my young boys. I was one of them at one point, so I know how to identify where they’re at because we are the same.’ If anything, fame and the ability to travel and meet people from different backgrounds across the planet has only bolstered his creativity. Rocky is a firm believer that great ideas can come from anywhere, and the only way to contribute great ideas of your own to the conversation is to be in touch with what’s happening all over. ‘Your background doesn’t really matter,’ he said. ‘I’ve met brothers in Africa that came here with style that is just fucking amazing – you would have thought we grew up together. I met brothers in Paris where the whole crew looked like a French A$AP Mob, and we were all clicking. You go to Brazil, you go to London, you go to Berlin, you go to all these places and, man, there’s always an A$AP Mob in these countries. It’s always a crew of fly motherfuckers. Whether it’s a niche or a bigger crew, it’s always there. There’s always fashionably forward people, anywhere you go on God’s green Earth.’
“There’s always fashionably forward people, anywhere you go on God’s green Earth.”
One topic left relatively untouched during our conversation was that of his personal life and family. Partnered with fellow global superstar Rihanna, they and their children face immense scrutiny and speculation from the general public and media. As much as possible, Rocky prefers privacy for his loved ones. Nevertheless, the topic came up exactly twice. Once was when, after hearing him describe the dissatisfaction and unhappiness he experiences when he isn’t able to realise his ideas, I asked what the opposite of that would be, the times when he experiences the greatest satisfaction and happiness. ‘I think peace really makes me happy,’ he answered. ‘Being a father and a partner and a loving husband in my family is what makes me really, really happy. I hope this doesn’t sound cliché, and I would hate if it does, because that’s what honestly does get me going: being able to express myself creatively, being able to be a family man and being able to be an artisan. It doesn’t matter what hat I wear that day, it’s just about being able to give it my all and do these things.’ The other time his personal life became relevant was when we initially had to reschedule our interview because he was busy preparing for one of his children’s birthdays. Earlier, I quoted him saying he tries to give 99.9 per cent of his ‘attention, tender love and care’ to everything he does, but when it comes to being a family man, he clearly gives one hundred.
In If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Rocky’s character Jamie is introduced while chatting to a cashier about outlandish scientific theories. ‘Is that real?’ the bewildered protagonist asks him. With a princely smirk that transforms his demeanour from that of a crazed conspiracist to that of a wise sage, he replies: ‘Anything could be real. Anything could be bullshit, too.’ Given the trajectory of Rocky’s life so far, no claim about his future prospects feels too outlandish to believe. What will happen next, no one knows, but even behind his reflective glasses I saw a glint in Rocky’s eye that suggests he has a clue.
Interview: Amber Later
Photographer: Rafael Pavarotti
Creative Director: Katie Grand
Fashion Editor: Matthew Henson