Nelly, who released his new albumM.O.last week, recently addressed how he feels regarding Miley Cyrus, a singer who has been criticized for rapping and for twerking. 

“Miley’s great,” Nelly said in an interview with IN:DEMAND with Alex James, as per Perez Hilton. “She’s a great talent. She’s young and ambitious and wants to do it her way. When you’re 20-years-old and you’ve been under a machine your whole life and been told what to do, when you get to a certain age you’re like, ‘I want to do it my way’…Whatever mistakes she makes, she’s gonna have to deal with them. She understands that…I always ask, ‘Who’s she hurting?’ She’s just doing it her way. We’ve had a lot of people doing it their way.” 

During the interview, Nelly also compared the singer to Madonna.

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“Madonna, she did it her way, and she became one of the greatest female entertainers of all time,” Nelly said. “Madonna grew up in the age of no social media. She wasn’t under the type of scrutiny that Miley’s under. Yeah, Miley twerked on stage at 20, but Madonna kissed two girls on stage at 50. Come on, man. Leave her alone.”

In September, Mike WiLL Made It also defended the young actress-singer.

“I look at her like how I do music,” Mike WiLL Made It said in an interview with Complex. “She is a fan of all music, just like I am. A lot of times, older people don’t get the new generation. The new generation will listen to a Pop song, a hard-ass hood song, and come back and listen to another Pop song. ‘23‘ is a representation of that and for those people. But, for the people that are stuck in only the Hip Hop box or only the Pop box, that song wasn’t for them. Or it’s there to break them out of their box. The fact that anybody would say anything to her about rapping, the only reason they would say that is because she’s White. And I never knew you had to be Black, White, Asian, or whatever to rap, I thought you had to just be talented. With rapping, that’s just another form of expressing your music. Whether you’re going to rap, you’re going to sing, it’s whatever you want. She still sings on that song, so it’s just another way to express it. It’s just a good song. As long as it’s good, nothing matters. She does her thing. As far as rapping goes, as long as you are telling the truth and you have a good flow, then you win.”

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In early October, Danny Brown said that Hip Hop artists who defend Miley Cyrus are disingenuous

“I think anybody doing that just trying to eat,” Brown said. “Ain’t no nigga worried about their own music worried about her. Kendrick Lamar is not trying to do no song with Miley Cyrus. It’s just like this, man. It’s like the little White girl in the ‘hood that might get you a plug on some pills or some shit. You gonna be nice to her to get your plug or whatever you need to get. They trying to eat.” 

RELATED: Danny Brown Says Miley Cyrus’ Supporters In Rap Are Disingenuous