So we come to Born Again, the aptly named six-track EP out September 28. It’s a big drop for Keith after his long hiatus. “After all, I spent three years in the U.S. without dropping an album,” he says. “Instead of just releasing a single, I wanted to make up for lost time—this is my comeback.” (There’s a full-length album soon to follow, as well). The first single, out today, is called “Ninja Turtle,” an excellent high-energy track that characterizes the sound Keith has spent the last year carefully crafting. “It’s underground, a little bit gothic, but still grounded in hip-hop,” he says. “Slightly dark, but exciting.”

“Ninja” is also a word he might use to describe his personal style, which skews more street than high-fashion—lots of A Bathing Ape, of course, and labels like Off-White, Ambush, WTaps, loosely drawn from the early 2000s fashion of Snoop Dogg, Pharrell etc. (“the Golden era.”). “I always liked that low-key, undercover look of ninjas, spies, secret agents, assassins,” he says. “It’s not that I hate high-fashion, but I don’t know it very well.”

This brings us to an interesting paradox: the Keith Ape of 2015 was a sought-after fashion figure, starring in Calvin Klein campaigns and attending Alexander Wang’s star-studded shows. “I’m not sure why, but a lot of people thought I loved high fashion, so a lot of the work I was getting back then fell in that direction. Maybe because I’m Asian, and high-fashion is big among Asians?” Keith also points to his style at the time—sharp bone structure and shoulder-grazing black hair, which gave him a pretty-boy look—and the trends then established by his peers, like the Japanese rapper Kohh.

“A lot of Americans think all Asians look the same,” Keith says. “Since Kohh and Keith Ape are both Asians, aren’t they the same? Don’t they have the same style? Back then, I was just starting out, so as the work came in, I thought I had to say yes to everything. I shouldn’t have, I wanted to do well, so I said yes to everything., but I didn’t know enough back then. But now, I’m going to pick and choose carefully to fix my image. What I want to say now is that I like typical American street style. I don’t chase trends.”