ASAP Rocky is well aware that his life could be very different right now.
“I feel so lucky to even be here talking to you,” Rocky said, speaking here late into the night on Thursday at a dinner celebrating his appointment as creative director for the Ray-Ban eyewear empire.
After all, it was just last week that the rapper was found not guilty on charges of shooting a former collaborator, sparing him up to 24 years in jail.
“I feel blessed, I feel lucky and fortunate,” Rocky said.
And so, just after 10 p.m., and only a couple hours after landing in Italy, Rocky arrived at Trattoria del Ciumbia in an understandably triumphant mood.
“I’m so happy to see y’all faces, this is crazy,” he called out to a room peppered with fashion designers, models and sundry celebrities like Romeo Beckham and Charli D’Amelio. For the remainder of the hour, Rocky worked the room like Frank Sinatra at the Copacabana.
He shook hands and posed for endless photos with his eyes hidden behind blacked-out sunglasses. He autographed a box of his special-edition Ray-Bans printed with a reworked image of a $100 bill, with his face where Benjamin Franklin’s would normally appear. He poured shots of tequila for the table. If there were any lingering concerns about how the fashion world would receive post-trial Rocky, they were brushed away by hugs, clinked glasses and general good feelings pinging around the room.
Still, when Ray-Ban announced that the rapper was joining the brand as a creative director, mere days after his courtroom victory, ears pricked up around the fashion world. Was this a stunty appointment à la Kate Moss being appointed creative director of Diet Coke or Alicia Keys filling that post at BlackBerry? Was this the latest job that seemed to be a news release rather than the creation of any bona fide products?
Rocky assured the room that his role at Ray-Ban would be “no different from any other creative direction position in a big corporation or some type of fashion house.” He spoke of visiting the Italian headquarters of Luxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban, to hammer out designs and shape seasonal collections.
“I have a big duty and a big responsibility,” Rocky said, standing in front of several pairs of “RoboCop”-style wraparound shades he had worked on, which changed colors in UV light.
Rocky said he valued the identity-obscuring properties of sunglasses and the way they can mask boredom, “like you’re sleeping, but they don’t even know you’re asleep.”
Despite the garish glasses on display, Rocky said his personal taste in eyewear is “very sophisticated.”
He certainly understands the power of clothing. During his trial, the public seemed as interested in Rocky’s cinematic courtroom outfits as the details being argued. Throughout the ordeal, he almost always wore Ray-Bans, perhaps nodding to the job awaiting him once he cleared his judicial hurdle. Rocky’s power-suit streak continues: At dinner he was dressed in a low-slung Saint Laurent number, a point- collared dress shirt and rep tie.
At 36 and now a father of two with his partner Rihanna, the rapper is clearly contemplative about how he — and his tastes — have matured. “More tailoring and more suits — that’s the wave as we get older,” he said.
The prospect of jail time behind him, Rocky’s schedule is all green once again. He declared, with some trepidation, that after a seven-year gap, his next album is finally done.
“I’m in the mixing and mastering realm of it,” Rocky said, acknowledging that fans, who have heard him say the album is almost done for years, don’t want any more updates.
“I want to just give people what I’ve been promising for a long time,” he said, tossing in a couple profanities for emphasis.
He is starring alongside Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s crime thriller “Highest 2 Lowest,” which is set to be released this year. And in May he will co-chair the Met Gala, with the theme “Tailored for You.” Rocky hasn’t yet decided what he’s going to wear.
“I’m trying to prioritize,” Rocky said. “I feel like everything is back on again.”
