Lil Nas X.Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty
Lil Nas Xnever imagined he’d have the platform he does as a successful, gay, Black hip-hop artist — but now that the world is watching, he’s making the most of it.
“I don’t think I would have ever came out,” he said. “I honestly felt like it was kind of my duty. Especially if I wanted to move forward. And what I was doing, because authenticity is very real, and I feel like people can see right through that. And that’s a part of me.”
Lil Nas X — who recently celebrated the “birth” of his debut albumMonterowith anover-the-top pregnancy announcement— said that for a while, he was insecure in his sexuality because he was afraid of how people would judge him for “how [he] would act post-coming out.”
The star, born Montero Lamar Hill,previously told PEOPLEthat two years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to be as open as he was on hissingle “Sun Goes Down,“which sees him reflect on coming to terms with his sexuality.
“To be 100 percent honest, I didn’t want to do that song at first,” he said. “I guess it was because I’ve never done something so personal. I was scared to let people see my vulnerability, because I didn’t want them to use it against me.”
“But when I released the song, I got messages from people telling me that it saved their life,” he continued. “It doesn’t feel real quite yet.”
Lil Nas X toldXXLthat despite feeling like something of an outsider in the industry, he’s now content embracing his role as a trailblazer.
“Honestly, I don’t feel as respected in hip-hop or many music places in general,” he said. “But these are communities that I am a part of, whether people would like it or not. This is something that I wanted to do because, not that my entire album is rap, but there are rap tracks on my album. I am a rapper. I am a pop star. I am a gay artist. But it’s like, I belong in these places, you know?”
“The way he’s unafraid to make people uncomfortable is so rock ‘n’ roll,” Kid Cudi wrote. “He’s a true rock star.”
source: people.com
