The last couple of days have belonged to Kid Cudi and Lil Nas X. Both have gone above-and-beyond with their outfits for New York Fashion Week, the VMAs and the Met Gala. Lil Nas shut down the VMA stage, winning Video of the Year and performing “Call Me By Your Name” and “Industry Baby” with Jack Harlow and a couple of nights ago, Kid Cudi and ASAP Nast killed a couple freestyles at a Virgil Abloh-hosted jam session at Carbone. Beyond the last 72 hours, the two rappers have both had standout years, which makes it even more fitting that Kid Cudi was responsible for writing Lil Nas X’s blurb on the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential People of 2021 list.
In the two-paragraph long explanation of why Lil Nas X is one of the most influential people of the last year, Cudi wrote, “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.”
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Continuing to lament over the “homophobic cloud over hip-hop” and Lil Nas’ ability to remain true to himself and “not (give) a f**k what anyone says,” Cudi explained that when Lil Nas responded to tweets about his upcoming album Montero not featuring any Black male artists, saying “maybe a lot of them just don’t wanna work with me,” he was sad and let Lil Nas know that he always has the Man on the Moon rapper’s support.
It has been a crazy year for Lil Nas X including so many social media sagas — outrage over giving the devil a lap dance, outrage over blood-infused Nikes, Boosie’s outrage over everything — and so many high notes in the form of super hot songs, insane performances and a general sense of doing whatever he wants and expressing himself how he pleases. After “Old Town Road” there was debate on which direction Lil Nas would go and while some may not have expected him to become one of the biggest stars in music and pop culture, that’s exactly what he is and now he has a spot on Time‘s list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2021 to prove it.
Do you agree with Time putting Lil Nas X on this list? Do you disagree? Let us know in the comments.
[Via]