One afternoon in Chelsea, during New York Fashion Week, Feng pulls up to a runway event looking like a hungover college freshman. The 19-year-old, part of an emerging wave of UK underground rap getting hyped up like the ’03 NBA draft class, has bags under his eyes. His hair is in a messy bun. He’s wearing a wrinkled white tee, a colorful scarf he bought off Depop, black skinny jeans, and house slippers with the heads of stuffed teddy bears on the top. He glances at the world of high fashion—a mix of magazine editors, brand ambassadors, influencers, models, young rap darlings, and a Los Angeles Lakers role player—and asks his manager, Christian, “Why’s everyone dressed so serious?” Christian responds, “’Cause everyone is putting on a fuckin’ show,” as they both bust out laughing.

After the collection is shown, Feng shuffles around the event space shaking a few hands and snapping photos on his iPhone 5, which makes all of his pictures look like he time-traveled back to 2013. As we make our way outside, he seems curious but relatively unimpressed by Manhattan, referring to it a few times as “corporate.” He’s eager to get to Flatbush, where, later in the night, he’s throwing a house party in the first-floor apartment of a brownstone he gained access to through various Instagram DMs. He hopes that it doesn’t get busted up by the NYPD, especially because he put up his own $500 for alcohol, turning down an offer from an energy drink company to sponsor the party. “Not everything needs to be branded; not everything has to be about making money—not that money isn’t important,” he says. “Right now, I’m just tryna go out and hang out with cool people and take cool pictures of their outfits and listen to music and make music about it.”

That’s pretty much how his breakout mixtape, February’s What the Feng, came about. With the fadedness of old Piff Gang and the coming-of-age spirit of early Mac Miller, the tape is mostly stories of Feng, who is from south London’s Croydon neighborhood, and his friends running around town, going to parties, meeting girls, and staying out too late. I think I like it so much because it reminds me of being a teenager in New York, where the public transportation made the world feel limitless, even if most of that freedom was used just to try to sneak into bars.

What the Feng is full of heartfelt and earnest writing, sometimes with the slightly corny ultra-positivity of one of those guys who gets drunk and tells all his friends how much he loves them. “There’s some lyrics on there that cringe me out now,” says Feng, with a blushing smile on his face. “But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I take the mundane things and feelings in life and make them interesting. I know there’s people out there who think I’m lame for it, but I don’t care. I think I’m cool.”