KENZO top and pants, NIKE shoes, FENDI glasses from Hall of Frames, and talent’s own earrings, necklace, bracelets, rings, and watch.

You’re now tapped in with brooklyn native fivio Foreign.

He’s on his first European tour. And when you’re on the verge of rap supernova, faces come out in the sun and the rain.

“I was thinking that nobody was gonna know the words to my songs here,” Fivio admits, considering his recent performances across the pond, “but when everybody knew the words I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’ That part was crazy. A lot of the places I’ve been going to, they speak minimal English. Like, when I first got to Paris, I went to see the Eiffel Tower and this guy ran up on me and was like, ‘Yo Fivio! Yo Français.’ No English. But he knew me.”

And right now, Foreign is gliding through Portugal to do a set for drill-mad fans on a sun-washed beach. “I thought these places would have been a lot different,” he says. “Like I was in London, and it’s not too different from New York, maybe a little more calm, but it’s definitely a New York type of vibe. And Portugal looks a lot like California. It’s like everywhere.”

COACH Jacket, LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S top, VALE pants, BOTTEGA VENETTA shoes and talent’s own earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings.

Fivio’s forte is ‘drill’ music.

What is ‘drill’ exactly?

Drill was originally a Chicago spin-off of trap music that kicked off in the late 2000s, and it really hit the mainstream in 2012, with the likes of Chief Keef and Lil Durk. It then swam overseas to the UK where it was introduced to a British lilt. Drill has now worked its way into being a kind of regional panache of underground energy everywhere across the earth.

And we can speculate on how to define the sound into poetry, but we leave that to the expert himself. Fivio drawls, “Drill is wild. Untamed. Like rock ‘n’ roll, in a way. It’s rockstar music.”

And this rockstar is flooded in blue fabric.

His teeth are as white as piano keys.

His neck and chest and face dance with flashes of ink.

Fivio’s music is so energetically explosive. The stuff hits hard, even the love songs, of which he has a few, and of which almost sound more infectious than the lit stuff, because singing about saccharinely courting shorties feels a bit unusual amongst drill beats.

The music we’re talking about here is off Fivio’s debut studio album B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth).

And what are those instructions?

And what does that mean exactly—‘leaving Earth?’

The instructions, if you will, are a metaphor for his life, a culmination of stories and a playbook on how to move.

Fivio is at the helm of the drill universe. And he handles the drill sound so effortlessly. He rides the wave of the drill dream as if it’s second nature.

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Second nature or studied fluidity?

“When I started doing drill it was more New York drill,” he says, “but I was always in tune with Chicago drill. When I was listening to Chicago drill, it didn’t make me want to do it. I was really just a fan of it.”

And as we speak, it becomes more clear that Fivio has been a student of the drill game ever since it graced his ears, “There are different types of drill,” he continues. “But the first time it was ever mentioned in New York was probably GS9. Bobby Shmurda did the song ‘Hot Ni**a.’ That’s when they started calling it the New York version of drill. But then a new type of drill came along with the UK beats. So when the UK beats came, that had to be 2017, 2018. I wanna say around that time it really got freaky.”
Freaky what? Freaky who?

Freaky meaning it really started to pop off?

After all, B.I.B.L.E. has features from the likes of Kanye West, Quavo, and Alicia Keys, to name a few. Yet, even though freaky reigns supreme, and with freaky can come uncertainty, Fivio stakes his claim as an original voice, “I feel like all the great artists always took something from artists that were great, or someone they looked up to, but you shouldn’t ever duplicate the same shit. I feel like you should study the art that came before you, no matter what you are: an actor, rapper, comedian, entertainer. Study the other greats, but you gotta have your own style, you gotta have your own swag. But you definitely gotta study people—you don’t just try to become the person. I hate when people just try to become that person and think ‘Oh, I’m gonna get lit cause this person did that.’ Nah. You look at the direction and you can go in that direction, but you gotta do it your way. You gotta show the you in it, and that’s when people fall in love. People fall in love with the you.”And people have fallen in love with Fivio.

AVIREX jacket, MIDNIGHT STUDIOS shirt, VALE Pants, and talent’s own earrings, necklace, bracelet, ring, and watch.

Are falling in love.

We say ‘are’ because he feels to be merely just getting started. Although, what if we told him five years ago that he would have all of this current success?

He pauses. Portuguese sunlight dances off his dark eyes. “To be honest, I might have believed you. I’ve always had faith. Faith in myself. Faith in God.”

But beneath that?

Fivio admits, “I’m surprised by the support. That’s a blessing. And it pushes me. I always feel like I gotta work more. Work harder.”

KENZO top and talent’s own necklace, bracelets, and rings.

We have to wonder. How would we handle it? What might career supernova feel like? When the dreams become realities?

“All the new stuff in my life feels good,” the artist concludes, “but what keeps me grounded is that I still got people that I take care of and that I go see; family, friends. I look at this as a job, so I don’t let it get to my head, and once I keep that in mind, I still get to be my regular self. In reality, you get a little more human because you start to see different things in the world. You start to understand the value of life, rather than somebody who didn’t travel the world, or someone stuck in their hood, or on their block—I feel like those people aren’t as woke as, say, I could be, because I’ve seen so much.”

Photographed by Zhamak Fullad
Styled by Zoe Costello
Groomed by Carolina Ballesteros
Flaunt Flim by Sophie Prettyman Beauchamp
Production Assistant: Chloe Cussen
Written by Augustus Britton