ASAP Rocky

My real name's Rakim - my parents named me after the god MC himself.

At the age of eight I started getting into fashion, brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Nautica and Ralph Lauren. But in 2005 I started wearing John Richmond jeans.

Sometimes I feel like what's hard for fashion designers to do is take looks from off the runway and actually put it into existence, into reality. That's really the hard part.

I love 'Robot Chicken,' 'The Boondocks' and 'America's Funniest Home Videos.' Then there's this show called 'The First 48.' It's a documentary about killings where they try and find murderers. They interrogate people and they tell on each other - it's hilarious.

I chose to deal with the underdogs on '1 Train.' I could've got the biggest superstars in the rap game, but why do that when you can let the young boys shine?

On 'Phoenix,' I talk about thoughts of suicide and my whole life. It's called 'Phoenix' because it's talking about dying - but when a phoenix dies, it's reborn from its own ashes. I related to that.