According to stereogum.com, on January 12, artist Lil Nas X released his first new single in nearly two years called “J. Christ” and the accompanying music video has received some backlash because the visuals for the track is heavy on the religious imagery, including the cover art featuring Nas X being pulled up on the cross. As for the music video, each scene shows the artist dressed up as the devil and Jesus in several biblical scenarios.

And now, Nas X has posted a video on his social media accounts where the rapper reflects on some of the backlash he has received from conservatives and religious groups. The social media post says: “I wanted to not necessarily apologize but I wanted to explain where my head’s at and where it’s been for the past week. First of all, when I did the artwork I knew there would be some upset people or whatnot, simply because religion is a very sensitive topic for a lot of people. But I also didn’t mean to mock.”

 

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The social media post continues with: “This wasn’t a ‘fuck you’ to you people, ‘fuck you to the Christians.’ It was not that. It was literally me saying, ‘Oh, I’m back like Jesus,’ that was the whole thing. I’m not the first person to dress up as Jesus. I’m not the first rapper, I’m not the first artist, and I won’t be the last,” he continued. “And I know given my history, with the ‘Call Me By Your Name’ video, anything I do related to religion could be seen as mockery, and that was not the case with this.”

Nas X went on to address and apologize for a promotional video released last week that features him downing communion wine and wafers: “I will say with the communion video, with me eating the crackers and juice, I thought that video was going to be the video to lighten the mood. I thought that was something we all wanted to do as kids, but I didn’t understand the reality of what it is. It’s me eating the communion, which is the symbolism of Jesus’ blood and bones or something like that, I don’t remember completely. I didn’t mean it as a cannibalism thing or whatever the freak… I do apologize for that, I will say I am sorry for that.”

The artist adds: “Though I don’t agree with all of Christianity’s rules or whatnot, I know not everybody follows Christianity by the book 100% or the world would be a lot crazier. But I do apologize for that. This is not to try to get everyone on my good side or whatnot, this is more so to clear my own head about my own decisions. I know I messed up really bad this time, and I can act unbothered all I want but it’s definitely taken a mental toll on me.”