Lil Nas X

Lil Nas X is a new twist on some of the themes I was riding on when I first started out: being true to yourself and not giving a f-ck what anyone says. What he’s doing is what we need right now. To have a gay man in hip-hop doing his thing, crushing records—that is huge for us and for Black excellence. The way he’s unafraid to make people uncomfortable is so rock ’n’ roll. He’s a true rock star.

When I saw the tweet about Nas’ album Montero not featuring Black male artists, and he replied that “maybe a lot of them just don’t wanna work with me,” that made me sad. There’s a homophobic cloud over hip-hop, and he’s going to break that sh-t down. We have to stand with him. I’m going to do whatever I have to do to let him know—you have my support. When we do our song together, however trippy the video is, let’s get sexy with it.

Kid Cudi is a Grammy-winning musical artist

Contact us at letters@time.com.