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During an appearance on The Shop: Uninterrupted, Kid Cudi went into detail about his decision to wear an Off-White dress for his Saturday Night Live performance of “Sad People” back in April.
Cudi reiterated it was done as a tribute to Kurt Cobain, explaining, “SNL comes my way, so I immediately thought like, oh this would be the perfect opportunity to wear a dress. But, do I go to a store and just buy something off the rack, or do I go get somebody to make me some shit?”
From there, he started looking around, when it dawned on him he had a close friend who could execute his vision. “I was at this point where I was looking on my phone, kind of looking at all these different stores and looking at dresses. I was just like, this is cute, this is cute. And then I finally realized, yo, I’m gonna get Virgil to do this. I’m gonna see if he has time, ‘cause he’s crazy [busy], he’s got a lot of things he’s doing.
“And he hit me right back and was like, ‘Yes, let’s go. I got prints, what you want?’ I was like, alright, I want something floral, like a sundress. He’s like, ‘Perfect.’ He sent me prints like two seconds later. He had them shits on deck.”
The moment was celebrated, with comedian and friend Pete Davidson praising the artist for it. Cudi was asked if he was worried about potential criticism for wearing the dress, and he responded with a definitive “no.”
“I’ve never been someone who’s like thinking about the backlash. 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.”
He continued, “If this is what I’m supposed to do, then so be it. I want to be a disruptor, I want to fuck shit up. 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.”
When asked if any of his peers reached out following the moment, Cudi replied, “It’s not like Kanye’s gonna hit me up and be like, ‘Yo that dress was fresh.’ But it’s OK, I know that Kanye sees that and he respects me for it.”
Kid Cudi also discussed being open about his mental health (“I knew that what I was doing was gonna help millions of other kids forever”) and his writing process. You can watch the full episode on HBO Max, which also features Tom Brady, Chelsea Handler, Draymond Green, Maverick Carter, and Paul Rivera.