When Kid Cudi decided to pay homage to Kurt Cobain and Nirvana by wearing a dress on his Saturday Night Live appearance, many people thought the rapper was just sharing his love of the grunge icons. But, it would seem, there was another reason for donning the frock.
The dress was designed by Off-White’s Virgil Abloh and worked as Cudi’s costume when he appeared on the legendary late-night sketch show. The musical guest put on the dress to provide a particularly brilliant rendition of ‘Sad People’.
Cudi has now revealed a little more of the reasoning behind the decision to wear the dress, telling HBO Max’s The Shop: Uninterrupted: “The image of seeing Kurt Cobain in a dress was very rock’n’roll to me,” he said.
“That was cool. So I already made my mind up years ago that I wanted to do this. And it’s cool because I’m also giving confidence to the kids and telling them to be themselves and do what they want to do.”
Conversations turned to the opinion of other rappers on his attire. It was something that Cudi was sure Kanye West “respects me for it” even if he hadn’t spoken to him and was unbothered if anyone was upset by the stunt: “I’m more like, ‘Hmm, I wonder why they feel that way… Fuck ‘em.’”
“I’ve never been someone who’s like thinking about the backlash,” the rapper continued. “I don’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks. You can’t when you’re doing this shit. I knew it would piss some people off, but I love that. Because hip hop is so weird about shit.
“I’ve already seen people making YouTube videos where they’re just strictly talking about me and this dress. Like grown men angry, grown Black men angry. ‘He’s doing something against men and masculinity, it’s a big thing going on…’ And I just be like, ‘Yo, this is so funny, this is crazy that I’ve stirred it up like this.’”
Watch Kid Cudi’s magnetic SNL performance of ‘Sad People’ below.
