Culture

A few things are fundamentally true about the world: The sky is blue, grass is green and Lil Nas X is an expert troll. Now, the “Call Me By Your Name” singer is catching the ire of Twitch streamer Kai Cenat over the rapper’s latest string of posts.
In a stream on Thursday, Cenat went on a screaming rant about the rapper following the artist’s latest string of promotions for his new single. “No, f–k that! Yo, Lil Nas X, you could eat my whole d–,” he yelled, cutting himself off before finishing the last word. “I hate that n—a, bro. Now that’s just popping in my head, bro … God is going to handle you in the right way. I don’t even want to talk about that yet, bro. But, look — God is going to handle you, bro.”

When a friend on the stream asked Cenat to explain what he was upset about, Cenat refused to get specific, instead saying to “go to his page, bro. He disrespected God himself … he disrespected the whole culture, mocking it, making fun.”

Billboard has reached out to Lil Nas X’s reps for comment.

Over the last week, Lil Nas X posted across his social media, promoting his new single “J CHRIST,” dedicating his new track to Jesus Christ, “THE MAN WHO HAD THE GREATEST COMEBACK OF ALL TIME.” Along with sharing teasers for the new song and video, the singer announced that he was entering his “Christian era,” joked that he’d release his gospel music independently and even shared a fake acceptance letter to conservative Christian college Liberty University, prompting the school to clarify that he had not actually been admitted.

But amid his persistent trolling, Lil Nas X also got real with his fans, explaining that the backlash to his use of religious themes throughout his music reeked of hypocrisy. When commenters lambasted the cover art of his new single — which features him being hoisted up on a black cross — as disrespectful to Christians, the rapper clapped back quickly. “the crazy thing is nowhere in the picture is a mockery of jesus,” he wrote. “Jesus’s image is used throughout history in people’s art all over the world. I’m not making fun of s–t. yall just gotta stop trying to gatekeep a religion that was here before any of us were even born. stfu.”

In another post, Lil Nas addressed claims that he trolls Christians too often. “y’all judge everything at face value. i’ve never released a visual without an underlying meaning and y’all know that. but since i’m a troll y’all discount my art as just ‘pissing ppl off,’” he wrote.

In a later post, he elaborated further, saying he didn’t appreciate the comparisons he received to artists such as Madonna and Lady Gaga, who also used Christian iconography in their art. “the problem with a lot of yall gays is yall think im trying to be like gaga or madonna when in reality with all due respect idgaf what they did and im doing what i want with my career.”