Lil Nas X Thanks Camila Cabello For Helping Get ‘Confidence Back’

Lil Nas X feels lucky to have Camila Cabello in his friend orbit. The rapper who has been sprinkling singles all over the place in the lead-up to the release of his as-yet-unscheduled Dreamboy album, told Paper magazine that the “I Luv It” singer was really there for him when he was having a crisis of faith in his personal and professional lives.

“We did a great job at uplifting each other and showing each other how we view the situation and how we view each other from outside of ourselves,” he said of his bestie, who he teamed up with last summer for her “He Knows” single. “Once you made up your mind: ‘Oh, the world doesn’t see me as something great or feels like I’ve done anything amazing.‘ To hear [affirmation] from somebody who you greatly respect and you love what they’ve done, it feels great, especially because you can feel like it comes from a genuine place, and not like someone trying to get something from you.”

Lil Nas said he had fun hanging out with Cabello at a time when he was just getting comfortable “going out places. It was just genuine fun. It didn’t feel like work. Camila made me feel so good, she made me feel so great,” he said. “And that was the beginning of me getting my confidence back. To finally be at this place, where I’m like, ‘Okay, I know who the f–k I am. I know where I’m going. I don’t care what none of these b–ches say. I didn’t care at first. Why do I care now?’”

The rapper also said he’s taking a completely different approach on the new album than he did with his 2021 full-length debut album, Montero. Whereas last time he said he brought the world to him, this time “I’m bringing myself to the world,” describing Dreamboy as a collection of “everything and anything I’ve ever loved or hated… it’s just me going out there and doing me in whichever form I feel.”

So far, Lil Nas has released eight songs that could be featured on the album, including “Hotbox,” “Light Again,” “Need Dat Boy,” “Dreamboy,” “Big Dummy!,” “Swish,” “Right There!” and “Lean on My Body,” which he recently collected on the Days Before Dreamboy EP.