Earlier this year, on the set of his first major music video, the rapper Valee was hemming his own clothes.

The shoot for “Miami,” featuring the hip-hop godfather Pusha T, who doubles as the president of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music, was meant to announce Valee, a 29-year-old from Chicago, as the latest addition to the tastemaking label. But instead of acting like a newly minted star, leaning into a world of stylists and on-demand everything, he brought a sewing machine from home.

“I put stuff together,” Valee said with a shrug during a recent trip to New York. It was an understatement, but also an all-purpose job description, one that hinted at the motivations of a man who is less a born rapper than a detail-obsessed D.I.Y. aesthete, always looking for a fresh creative angle.