Lil Nas X once again opened up about his controversial new single “J Christ.”
The 24-year-old appeared on a new episode of the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast published on Monday to talk about the backlash he endured as he entered his “Christian era” and the release of “J Christ,” which depicts the openly gay rapper’s crucifixion.
The single, which debuted at No. 69 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, inspired an uproar for Nas X’s use of religious imagery. The rapper lost a whopping 140,000 followers on his Instagram in light of the controversy.
“I already kind of explained the situation in that video, but it was thing that that artistically was just supposed to be like, ‘I’m returning. I’m back, I’m back like Him,’” said Nas X to the British author and podcaster. "It turned into this whole thing where it was me trying to dunk on Christians or something, and that was never what it was. I looked at the video with me eating like the communion or whatnot, and I was like 'Okay, this looks really bad on paper. This thing that I thought was a little jokey fun video."
Nas X further explained he was thinking about his family members who were Christian and if they thought he was disrespecting them in any way. "And I'm like, 'wow, do they see this as that too?' If they do, you know, that's really messed up. And it makes me sad. And then on top of that, seeing actual fans turn and say, 'whoa, why is he doing this? Why does he keep messing with these people?'"
He also defended the message of "J Christ," which he felt got misconstrued during the rollout of his comeback single. He states it is actually an homage to Jesus.
"And I think another thing was messages got turned around…The idea of 'Montero (Call Me by Your Name),' which is me taking ownership of this place everybody tells me I'm going to go. And that was just turned into, 'oh, he's teaching Christianity a lesson', when that's not the case," he explains. "And now this thing was like, 'oh, I'm Jesus. I'm back like Jesus,' which is, if anything, it's like a homage to Jesus. Like this guy that made the greatest comeback of all time. I'm not the first artist to do such a thing."
"That message turned around and I didn't know how to do anything with it. It wasn't my chaos anymore. It was the world’s and anything anybody said was true, because that's who I am as a person. I'm this troll and I want to make these people mad. And so everybody can run with that."
"And there's nothing I can do about that. I can say as many things as I want, but knowing my history, they look right, I look wrong."
To conclude, he went on to say, “I feel like I’ve apologized to the communion thing on that note. Everything else? I’m not sorry about. I don’t think I did anything wrong. I’ve also been making a lot of gospel music to God and, like, my spiritual side, and I hate that this whole thing gets turned into a ‘mockery,’ which it isn’t.”
Nas X, born Montero Lamar Hill, also talked about his deep Christian roots. His father, who was once a gospel singer, eventually came to fully accept his son after coming out.
“I feel like me and my father have grown closer as I got older ‘cause the version of me that he saw wasn’t really me, it was the version I presented to him… When I initially came out to my dad he was just like, ‘The devil might be tempting you’ and whatnot,” said the rapper. “It’s definitely taken its own journey because now my dad is like, ‘Yo, do you have a boyfriend?’ kind of vibe. ‘You could tell me about that stuff, you can let me know that.’ He even came with me to a gay club with my brothers and sisters one time.”
Last week, Nas X released a new single called “Where Do We Go Now?” taken from his HBO documentary, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero. The doc is available to stream now on Max.
