Although Le1f is loath to being ghettoized as a gay rapper — “i’ve already cleared my own lane,” he tweeted on Wednesday. “i’m driving now. bye bitches.” — he is the most visible and accomplished representative of that group, ever. He has performed on “Late Show With David Letterman,” toured overseas and earned heaps of praise from pace-setting outlets like Pitchfork and VFiles.

In a lustrous review for Le1f’s 2013 mixtape “Fly Zone,” Stereogum called the record “exhilarating” and a “landmark moment for a very particular club-rap hybrid that feels very exciting.”

In March, Le1f released his first commercial EP, “Hey,” on Terrible Records (in partnership with XL Recordings), a Brooklyn indie label that has worked with Blood Orange and Solange Knowles. “There isn’t a blueprint for Le1f,” said Ethan Silverman, a founder of Terrible. “He can write, produce, sing, dance and entertain. And he looks incredible while doing it.”

Le1f, whose real name is Khalif Diouf, was raised in Hell’s Kitchen by his mother, who worked at Pan Am and as a travel agent. His Senegalese father was “kind of irrelevant,” he said. By his late teens, he was immersed in the city’s metastasizing underground dance-music scene. He went to Trouble & Bass parties and met genre-fusing artists like Spank Rock and Ninjasonik. It was an incubator for avant-garde designers like Shayne Oliver of Hood by Air, Luar Zepol and Telfar Clemens, at whose shows Le1f often sits front row.

“It was a new New York story that was told via music and fashion and had all these iconic characters,” said Venus X, the founder of GHE20GOTH1K, a party that was a crucible for the scene. “Le1f started quickly to synthesize those ideas at a really young age.”