The house, as Nav will stress when you ask about the half-dozen Chanel-branded candles, is rented. The climb up to the Valley side of the Hills starts in a sluggish suburb that would be Rockwellian if not for the palm trees. The streets are a grid at first, but that grid eventually pinches and breaks apart into the sort of darting, cramped, nearly vertical system of capillaries that signifies wealth in Los Angeles. The houses get slicker and more postmodern; sometimes all you see are gates. You hold your breath as you lean into blind curves and hang off the edges of jagged cliffs to let Audis and Maseratis pass through. Don’t worry. This is only temporary.

Outside there’s a black Rolls Royce and two stone Buddhas. The only colors in the living room are black, white, and metallic silver—except for the Marilyn Monroe portrait that’s bordered in glitter and studded with faux pearls where her earrings and bracelet would be. The kitchen table sits under a painting of the Hermes logo, except the Hermes logo is sort of melting. A stack of books whose spines are simply fashion labels (GUCCI, DIOR, LOUIS VUITTON, CHANEL) are joined only by The Art of War.

This is the Toronto native’s first press cycle, after a blink-of-an-eye rise to prominence shrouded in the type of mystery that works on SoundCloud, and that his XO labelmate, Abel Tesfaye, wrote the contemporary playbook for. He co-produced Drake’s Meek Mill death blow “Back to Back,” delivered the coke-dusted chorus of the 2016 Travis Scott single “Beibs in the Trap,” and racked up tens of millions of plays for his own material. His buddy the Weeknd is touting Nav as his first real protégé. He talks eagerly about winning a Grammy one day, just like Abel.

Nav moves gamely around the room of his rental, posing for a photographer who, lanky and lightly clothed though he may be, is dripping in the July heat. Nav is fine. He adjusts his watch, is told yes, just like that; do that; adjust your watch, and continues to adjust his watch, only this time for the camera. The flash from the light stand bounces off a bouquet of flowers that has been spray-painted silver. Nav doesn’t exactly smile. When the shoot moves outside, he declines to take off black satin jacket with the Rap-A-Lot logo on the back and left breast and “Supreme” embroidered on the right.