--- description: Find out why Lil Nas X is one of the 100 most influential people of 2021. title: Lil Nas X: The 100 Most Influential People of 2021 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2309f8cb2d9bff47/698a1cb08fd2ee7fed362e25/lil-nas-x-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Sep 15, 2021 # Lil Nas X by Kid Cudi  Lil Nas X Kelia Anne for TIME Lil Nas X Kelia Anne for TIMEKelia Anne for TIME L[il Nas X](https://time.com/5652803/lil-nas-x/ "undefined") 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](https://time.com/5950756/lil-nas-x-montero-interview/ "undefined") 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_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095928/lil-nas-x-artist/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095928/lil-nas-x-artist/"},"headline":"Lil Nas X","datePublished":"2021-09-15T11:19:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:32.521Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095928/lil-nas-x-artist/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","T100 2021","T100 2021 Artists"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2309f8cb2d9bff47/698a1cb08fd2ee7fed362e25/lil-nas-x-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2309f8cb2d9bff47/698a1cb08fd2ee7fed362e25/lil-nas-x-time-100-2021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095928/lil-nas-x-artist/","name":"Lil Nas X"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Behind the scenes with Lil Nas X at his TIME cover photo shoot","description":"Lil Nas X talks to TIME about holding the longest running number one single of all time.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/pdcp5Qj3/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-08-14T22:37:11.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pdcp5Qj3.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095928/lil-nas-x-artist/","duration":"PT2M6S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2021/6095928/lil-nas-x-artist/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```