December 8, 2011 12:00PM ET

A$AP Rocky: Harlem’s Finest

Fashion-obsessed vegetarian MC is New York’s hottest new rapper

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You ever smoke trainwreck?” A$AP Rocky asks. The 23-year-old Harlem rapper cracks open a bulging baggie and savors the aroma. “Take some, please.” Rocky, riding through Manhattan in the back of a black Lincoln Navigator, is feeling generous these days. He’s just signed a deal with Polo Grounds/RCA that he says is worth $3 million total, based entirely on the strength of his dazzling online singles, some raucous shows and the endorsement of MCs like Drake, who’s taking Rocky on tour this winter. Rocky’s a vegetarian (“I just wanted to clean my mind, body and soul”) and a high-end clotheshorse (he name-drops designers Rick Owens and Raf Simons on his hit single “Peso”), and we’re headed from a vegan teahouse to a favorite downtown boutique. “I love shopping, it relaxes me,” the rapper says. “By the way, if you see anything you want — jacket, shirt, whatever — it’s on me.”

A$AP Rocky was born Rakim Meyers, his parents naming him after the legendary MC: “They jinxed me in a good way.” But while the original Rakim is a towering totem of classic New York hip-hop, Rocky’s style defies geography. Growing up, he listened to hip-hop from New York (Rakim, DMX), California (Snoop Dogg, DJ Quik), the South (UGK, Three 6 Mafia) and the Midwest (Bone Thugs-N-Harmony). His music reflects that mongrel pedigree. On standout tracks like “Bass” and “Purple Swag Chapter 2,” from his recent LIVELOVEA$AP mixtape, he’s as comfortable dropping Bone Thuggish melodic double-time threats as a laid-back Snoop-indebted drawl about partying with “bad bitches” on tour; his beats, many of them produced by the up-and-coming Clams Casino, are woozy, evoking the slurred tempos of Houston. Rocky’s been rapping since he was about 15, but didn’t “get serious” till he turned 20, joining a crew called A$AP with some Harlem pals. Unmoored from any single regional style, Rocky s best songs are perfect for, and a product of, 2011- era rap, in which the Internet has become its own ZIP code. “I am a New York rapper, obviously, but I make whatever’s appealing to me,” he says. “That’s why, when I rap, you can’t tell where I’m coming from. I can’t explain it. I just do it.”

Stopped in traffic, he spots three teenagers doing a crazy parkour-break-dance fusion, running up the sides of buildings. He throws open his door and says he wants them for a video. He gives one of them his number, says to text. Leaving them murmuring excitedly, he ditches the SUV and walks down the block to the downtown fashion temple Opening Ceremony. Today’s outfit includes a Rick Owens T-shirt ($500), a black A.OK topcoat ($300) and skinnyjeans bunched up over silver Raf Simons “astronaut” high-tops ($750). The sneakers have a zippered pouch in the back, like high-concept Roos. “I’ve been into fashion since about ’06,” Rocky says. How did he afford it? “I sold drugs. I would just go in, go in, go in, saving up.” He says his occasionally flamboyant wardrobe can prompt funny looks from hardcore hip-hop-heads, but he takes it as a compliment. “I used to be homophobic,” he says. “But every designer I love is gay. I had to grow up, get mature.”

Rocky chats up a striking shopgirl with braids down to her calves. Trying on a pair of desert boots, he asks if she wants to be in his next video. “I like your look,” he says, practically purring. She laughs and gets out a pen to give him her number. “What kind of music do you make?” she asks. He shrugs. “Rap, I guess.”