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If you had told Feng that after just a year of working a nine-to-five office job he would emerge as one of the best new rappers to break into the UK hip-hop scene, he probably would’ve believed you. He’s just built like that. Distinctive in his pink poodle sneakers and overwhelmingly optimistic lyricism, the 19-year-old self-taught producer prefers to follow his musical instincts more so than the trends of the moment. With his debut album Weekend Rockstar dropping this week, the London-based rapper has been throwing Project X-esque house parties around New York and L.A. to give fans a taste of what’s in store. The catch? Feng’s guest lists are selected by a randomization feature on his website. The only requirement, he explains, is his parties be “a melting pot of just amazing people.” Before another one of his ragers got started, we snuck in to help set up and talk major party mishaps, performative movie-watching, and the new age British invasion.
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JULIAN RIBEIRO: Let me just make sure this is on before I say things. Boom. I’ll put this here.
FENG: Yeah. How’s it at your magazine?
RIBEIRO: It’s about to be really busy here because everyone’s about to go to fashion week. It starts in New York, then some of us go to London, some of us do Milan and some do Paris.
FENG: What’s your thing?
RIBEIRO: Paris.
FENG: I’ve been to Paris.
RIBEIRO: It’s fun. Are you going to fashion week this year?
FENG: When is it? I’m terrible with dates. I don’t even know the months of the year.
RIBEIRO: It’s the beginning of March, I think. It’ll be fun. When did you get into town?
FENG: I got into town about a week ago now. Just been doing stuff, setting up for this.
RIBEIRO: Is this your first time in New York?
FENG: This is my third time.
RIBEIRO: Well, boom. Here, let me look at my notes. I guess we could also start about the house we’re at. We are in this ginormous crib on the Lower East Side.
FENG: It’s fucking lit.
RIBEIRO: It’s really lit.
FENG: It’s crazy.
RIBEIRO: So you’ve been throwing these house parties. Talk to me about them. What’s the energy?
FENG: The energy is amazing. Everybody signs up on the website we made, and then it just randomly picks. It’s kind of like a melting pot of just amazing people. Then I try to curate it with DJs, so the music’s kind of hitting all different types of things.
RIBEIRO: Yeah.
FENG: It’s like, party music. My briefing to the DJs is like, “We need some fun shit. We need some crazy fun stuff.”
RIBEIRO: I think my friend Ali RQ is DJing tonight.
FENG: I think so. I know Nick Cho is.
RIBEIRO: Yes.
FENG: Pink Pantheress is coming. But yeah, the house parties have been really fun. The one in L.A. was more of a frat house vibe. People were falling out of the windows and were on the roof and stuff. So this is a bit more…
RIBEIRO: Contained.
FENG: I’d say classy.
RIBEIRO: Classy. But that is sick. In New York, if you want to get a proper, proper house, you have to go to Queens or Yonkers or something. To pivot, talk to me about Feng a year ago, because a lot happened really quickly. Where were you at before the music started really taking off?
FENG: I had an office job. It was like an internship. That’s kind of how “Weekend Rockstar” came about. I would basically work during the week, and then I’d focus on music. It started off as a passion that I was doing on the side of regular life, then it just started to take off. I was like, “Yo, I can really do this, every day.”
RIBEIRO: That’s sick. Do you feel like when you travel to America, do you feel like you’re meeting people who are like…
FENG: Yeah. They’re like me.
RIBEIRO: They like you, yeah.
FENG: Not that they like me, that they are like me. Growing up, I’ve been around all types of people. So I feel like I’m good at understanding people in a sense. And going to L.A. and New York has been amazing because I’ve made so many new friends. But they’re like meaningful friendships, and people that I actually want to be around. Not just for clout or anything. It’s just like, I would actually chill with you.
RIBEIRO: Totally. Do you ever miss home when you’re traveling?
FENG: Yeah, I miss home. But when you’re in the moment and enjoying life every day, missing home doesn’t happen that often. I have so much love for every city that I’ve been to.
RIBEIRO: Is there anything in particular you like about New York?
FENG: I like New York because it’s a lot like London. It’s just in a different font. London has so many different types of people from all types of backgrounds. And then when you come to New York, it’s the same thing, but it’s slightly different.
RIBEIRO: Yeah. I feel like so many people from England come here and they acclimate really quickly. They get the vibe.
FENG: They do.
RIBEIRO: Everyone’s running around. You have the metro, you have music and artists and people and things are just moving really fast.
FENG: Right. It’s like, every day you walk around and see someone new. And you never know who you’re going to bump into. It’s a city, but it’s more like a giant little village. Everybody knows each other.
RIBEIRO: It’s pretty sick. You have an album coming out pretty soon. Your debut album.
FENG: Yeah.
RIBEIRO: How does it feel to have that on the horizon?
FENG: It’s scary, but it’s very exciting.
RIBEIRO: Yeah.
FENG: I would say I’m rooted in where I came from, like rap music, but I’m also kind of experimenting with alternative and dance. And I feel like I’ve made a really complete project where I kind of hit every single thing, because I like all that type of music. I just want to challenge myself and try new things.
RIBEIRO: I was listening to it this morning at the gym. I think there’s something kind of cool about how when my body’s in motion and I’m actively listening to something, I actually can really sit with it. You kind of get in a flow state.
FENG: You know when you finish a couple of curls and you’re just like…
RIBEIRO: Exactly. And the album is really cool. I am interested in how you said it felt complete, because I really liked how it touches on a lot of different things.
FENG: It’s just everything I’ve experienced. Nothing on there is fake, every single lyric is something I’ve experienced. It’s just a diary really. My music is my diary.
RIBEIRO: I think you’ve spoken about this before, about how the way you’re making music is processing your feelings and just like, pen to paper-ing.
FENG: Yeah. I think I’ll answer a lot of questions that people have about me through my music. That’s what every artist needs to do. Just focus on making meaningful music that lasts a long time. I feel like I did that. I hope I did.
RIBEIRO: Totally. I was also kind of listening to the album through this lens of being like, it’s pretty positive. You’re just talking about friends and emotions and being outside. It’s like, grateful and bright.
FENG: I also try not to be ignorant as well. I face the problems that I’ve had. For example, “XX” is a song that I’m really passionate about. It’s like, we’ve all had a girl that you’ve broken up with, or a man, and then you miss them. So you call them. This is going to sound crazy, but you can always self-pleasure, but sometimes you want more than that. So you want to call that person because that’s real love. It’s like longing for an intercourse with someone that you know and have a history with.
RIBEIRO: That’s sick.
FENG: I’m trying to get better at explaining.
RIBEIRO: You’re doing a terrific job. Oh, this is something I wanted to ask about. To give you a scene report, I feel like for an American audience who are into new rappers and like underground, it really belongs to the UK. And I’m wondering, especially in New York and L.A., what has compelled these American audiences to just be so down for the British invasion?
FENG: I like how you said that. I’ve referenced this before, that it’s very reminiscent of the British invasion in the 1970s, where loads of punk bands and rock bands kind of came to America and became popular and influenced a lot of people. But I just think the UK is making amazing music, and people are listening. It all happened very naturally. Everybody who came up didn’t have a foothold in America initially, or some sort of huge label. We all kind of made music in the UK and then it’s translated really well into America.
RIBEIRO: I feel like I have a few friends who are kind of in this up and coming music scene in London, they’re always like, “It’s really small and everyone knows each other,” kind of thing.
FENG: Yeah, I think London is. There’s so many amazing shows that happen. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but every week there’s an underground show. There’s this guy called Kobe.
RIBEIRO: Kobe?
FENG: He’s like 16 or 17 and he did one of my first shows. I just want to shout out all those people that are kind of building the scene. They’re giving a platform to those people. I feel like that’s what really accelerated a lot of artists, I think. I haven’t been to many of those shows recently, but I see videos of it all the time and every week there’s a new guy or a new girl that’s just going crazy. And the fans are going crazy.
RIBEIRO: That’s sick.
FENG: It’s like, you could just go there and you’ll see a new artist. Kids that hear about artists like me or Fakemink or EsDeeKid or anything, they just look up online a show and then there’s a show all the time. It’s very accessible, so it’s easy for it to grow. There’s kids that you wouldn’t think would be listening to all this, but then you see them and they actually are.
RIBEIRO: No, it’s mind blowing. And the key people here really have a line of sight into all the London kids. I mean, we have great people in New York, we have incredible shows, we have cool ass people. But I think sometimes in New York, things move over really quickly. People are just loving London right now. I’m really upset that I’ve never been, actually.
FENG: You have to go.
RIBEIRO: I have to fix this.
FENG: You have to fix it.
RIBEIRO: I guess in the same vein of people watching and stuff, do you read comments? Do you read tweets? Do you want to see what people say, or do you try to tune that stuff out?
FENG: I don’t pay attention, because I know who I am. I know the things that I do, and I always have good intentions. Any artist shouldn’t be listening to any sort of hate or anything, you know?
RIBEIRO: Yeah, 100%.
FENG: Because I need to make the album and focus on making good music. That’s what I’ve always done. Making good art, throwing these parties. That kind of noise just doesn’t help.
RIBEIRO: Never. Outside of music, what are you into media wise?
FENG: I like watching movies. I watched Marty Supreme.
RIBEIRO: Did you like it?
FENG: It’s pretty good.
RIBEIRO: I saw it with my mom on Christmas.
FENG: I enjoyed it. I think [Timothée] Chalamet is the white boy for me.
RIBEIRO: Yeah.
FENG: I think he’s the best actor right now because he’s able to do different roles. Marty Supreme is so different from other films he’s been in. A lot of actors kind of stay in one kind of lane or something, but he’s just so versatile.
RIBEIRO: I know. A few minutes before I came here, Catherine O’Hara died–
FENG: She died?
RIBEIRO: She died an hour ago. And it was crazy because I was at the office and we were watching clips from Best in Show. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that movie, but you have to watch it at some point because it’s just legendary. But could we put a Letterboxd top four down right now? Or is that too crazy?
FENG: Every time I’m in a conversation with someone, I’ll say, “I love movies,” they’re like, “Oh, do you have Letterboxd?” I always download it and never use it.
RIBEIRO: I can’t get into it either. It’s also like, maybe I want to fuck with a movie in an interior way, or just tell a friend about it. I don’t need to post what I thought about it.
FENG: Yeah, if you really wanted to do it, I would just do it in your notes. I did that one time. I had a little scrapbook and I was trying to be all productive and shit, so I watched it and I wrote down what I got from it.
RIBEIRO: Yeah.
FENG: I never did it again.
RIBEIRO: It’s easy to get into that kind of thing.
FENG Yeah, you’re like, “I’m going to be really performative and do this,” and then just never do it again.
RIBEIRO: Tea, tea. But also, can we off the top of the head, can we make a fake Letterboxd top four?
FENG: I have a list.
RIBEIRO: Get the list out, please.
FENG: Ok yeah, this is my long list. I haven’t actually updated it in a while. I like Whiplash. I like how the guy kind of gets through all the noise and all the bullshit that guy gives him and he still succeeds. American Beauty is my favorite film.
RIBEIRO: That’s a great movie. They made me watch it in high school and I was like, “That’s a really cool movie for you guys to show me in high school.”
FENG: It’s really dark. And Catch Me If You Can.
RIBEIRO: Catch Me If You Can. It’s a classic.
FENG: Shawshank Redemption. There’s so many films. Limitless is cool. I like how tricky it is.-
RIBEIRO: Okay, we got a good four down. Also, we’re at the top of a new year. Do you have any goals for 2026? After the album comes out, you want to travel, you want to get bigger houses for bigger parties?
FENG: Oh, do you want some pizza?
RIBEIRO: I’ll take a slice.
FENG: I’m just going to go with the flow, to be honest. I have a tour coming up, but I just can’t wait for the album to come out. It’s going to be different, but I think people will like it.
RIBEIRO: Totally.
RIBEIRO: Wait, do you remember the upload date of the first track?
FENG: That was actually in 2024. But when I first started taking music I was like, “Okay, I’m going to write this now.” It was like January or February last year.
RIBEIRO: Wow. So we’re basically like a calendar year to the day. That’s crazy.
FENG: Yeah, basically.
RIBEIRO: So 365 days ago you decided you’re an artist, and now we’re in a giant empty house in Chinatown getting pizza. It’s pretty sick.
FENG: Life is pretty amazing.
RIBEIRO: This is pretty tight.
FENG: I’m literally living a real life Gossip Girl episode.
RIBEIRO: You dress cooler than that.
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