I’m geeking out because Jadakiss is standing behind me, wearing the navy-blue Supreme x Margiela zip-up, asking someone, “Where the bud at?” Across the sprawling Brooklyn performance space called the Compound Art & Sound Gallery, Jazzy Jeff blends Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” into Al Green’s “I’m Glad You’re Mine,” the same soul loop famously sampled on Biggie’s “I Got a Story to Tell.” The night is technically a celebration of Philadelphia. Black Thought is even performing later. Right now, though, he’s backstage with Kiss and the evening’s surprise guest: A$AP Rocky.
It’s a few hours after a sit-down with VIBE in Red Hook, where a pensive Rocky had a chance to talk through fatherhood, Harlem, taste, and what makes a home. Still fresh off the Met Gala earlier that week, Rocky is outfitted in a pink Chanel button-up and black trousers, chains from his brand, PAVĒ NITĒO, hanging from his neck. He rolled through to support the owner of the space, culture curator Set Free, whom he’s known since he was 21. Inside, every few steps we take get interrupted by someone he hasn’t seen in years, saying, “What’s up?” “Remember Comme des Fuckdown?” Rocky asks me. I nod. “That’s him,” he says, pointing out the brand’s founder, Ruslan Karablin, before dapping him up.
