We’re headed downtown, to Mitchell’s new exhibition of photographs at Gagosian, “Ghost Images,” and once we’re inside it’s Rocky who is doling out the praise. “It feels like a scene from a movie,” he says about one image of a group of subjects on a dock. His reaction to a photograph, printed on fabric, of a man wearing a general’s jacket: “Alright, Tyler.” And when he first sees a print of three women all dressed in white, he proclaims, “That’s the one.”

Rocky spent much of 2024 working on his forthcoming album, Don’t Be Dumb, and during the week leading up to his Vogue shoot, he transformed a two-room suite at Soho House into a studio space—with one room furnished to his liking with a number of his suitcases, a furry lime-green coatrack he designed in the shape of a giant cactus, and various baskets filled with an ever-growing collection of toys he’s bought for his kids. “I need to include what I just experienced,” he says of the music left to record.

It’s in this suite where Rocky conducts a video interview, sequesters himself to FaceTime with his family, and eventually reflects on what it was like to be named a Met co-chair and given a cover of Vogue.

“Shooting in Harlem today was surreal,” he tells me. “It was like a dream come true.” Even though his family sometimes struggled when he was younger, he says, “what I was privy to and got to experience made me so lucky. I grew up with both parents; I got to see love. And being from Harlem, it just gives you this…pizzazz.” (Being photographed inside Hughes’s brownstone was a consolation of sorts, as Rocky inquired about buying the home a few years ago. The owner wasn’t willing to sell.)

While Rocky appreciates his co-chair appointment, he wasn’t necessarily surprised by the honor. “Who else?” he jokes. Figures spanning decades and a mix of backgrounds come to mind when he thinks about Black dandies: Louis Armstrong, Frank Lucas, his father, Malcolm X, the members of Dipset. Even his sons come up. “It’s in them already,” he says. “Look who they moms is. She dress her ass off.”

Despite his New York City roots, Rocky set foot in The Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time in 2014 at the Met Gala, which honored the late designer Charles James. “I know that sounds mad ignorant, because you could be a local and still go to a museum,” he says, but the Louvre isn’t always filled with Parisians either. At this year’s gala, “I’m looking forward to seeing everybody celebrate Black excellence,” Rocky says. “When people celebrate a different culture or race,” he adds, “sometimes it’s done with intent, sometimes with ulterior motives.” The exhibition “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” strikes Rocky as “genuine…and very, very, very.…” He takes a second, choosing just the right word. “So many I want to say, but I’m just going to say, important.”