B’KLYN KID RISES
Young hip-hop star Desiigner hangs with Kanye, but won’t forget his Bed-Stuy roots
FOR most teens, the highschool prom is usually a time for sweaty palms, awkward dancing and, if they’re lucky, some nervous sexual experimentation. Not for Designer. At the end of May, he passed on the standard stretch limo and attended his highschool prom in a Rolls-Royce. It was hardly surprising the 19-year-old was looking to live large: His debut single, “Panda,” had just hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, making him the first New York rapper to top the charts since Jay Z with 2009’s “Empire State of Mind,” featuring Alicia Keys. “I was stuntin’ [showing off] in the Balmain blazer for sure — ha ha!” Designer tells The Post of his big night at Thomas Jefferson HS in East New York, Brooklyn. The rapper, who is nominated for best hip-hop video and best new artist at Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, is now a hero among his old school buddies, and in the Louis Armstrong housing projects in Bed-Stuy, where he grew up. “My block was always a tight community, so everyone knew me as a kid. They’re all just happy for me. Every time I roll through, they yelling out my name!” The streets of Brooklyn haven’t always shown him love. As a 14-year-old, he sustained mminor injuries in a shooting — he refuses to elaborate. The damage wasn’t too severe, but it drove him to step up his musical efforts, and, in 2015, the moody “Panda” (comprised of a beat purchased from a British producer for just $200) first surfaced online. It found the ears of Kanye West, who called him out of the blue to collaborate. “In my mind, I always knew that call would come. It was just a matter of time. It was a crazy moment.”
Kanye used a large chunk of “Panda” in his own track “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2” (from his album “The Life of Pablo”), but, oddly, it was “Panda” that surged even higher. Impressed with the New Yorker’s raw talent, Yeezy also signed him up to his GOODMusic label.
“Kanye is all about us being artists,” Desiigner says. “Not just rappers, but artists across anything: painting, acting, producing, designing. He just wants me to be me — do my thing with my swag, my funk.”
Not everyone is a fan of his style, however. Many in the hip-hop world have made comparisons between Desiigner’s gruff, slurred rapping style with that of trap star Future. The Georgian (who will also be performing at the VMAs) seemed dismissive in a recent Rolling Stone story, almost refusing to be mentioned in the same breath as the Brooklyn upstart. For his part, Desiigner is diplomatic to a fault, and will not be drawn into a beef.
“It doesn’t make no sense for people to be worried about who’s fighting each other,” he says. “It’s more important to know who’s working together.”
He may have used Kanye’s co-sign, but Desiigner is doing pretty well on his own. His first mixtape, “New English,” dropped in June, and new single “Tiimmy Turner” is rising up the Top 40. While he famously boasted on “Panda” about having “broads in Atlanta,” the Brooklynite admits that the ladies now have designs on Desiigner in places much farther afield. “[‘Panda’] was a worldwide hit, so I guess you just gotta pick any spot in the world!”