Before moving into country music, Post Malone first found success in hip-hop. His debut single “White Iverson” peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2015. Fast forward nearly 10 years later, and Post Malone is opening up about how people calling him a “culture vulture” made him feel early on in his career.

“It sucked. I was a kid,” the 29-year-old artist said during a recent CBS News Sunday Morning interview, adding that he took the criticism personally and self-medicated with alcohol.

He found inspiration by focusing on his fanbase, saying, “It’s not for the people who hate you. It’s for the people who love you, and for yourself, you know what I mean?”

“There’s a lot of people that wanted to talk down on me, and laugh at me, and call me a ‘culture vulture,’ and say that I don’t appreciate hip-hop, that I don’t do nothing for the culture,” Post Malone told CBS, according to Vibe. “And I always say, congratu-f**kinglations, man. I guess this is me telling y’all to live your f**king best life, don’t listen to what the f**k nobody has to say about you. Because you are the f**king s**t, and you can do whatever the f**k you want to do if you believe in your f**king self.”

His response didn’t sit well with many folks on Twitter (formerly known as X).

One person tweeted, “Post Malone drinking because he was being a “culture vulture” is hilarious because all he had to do was just give respect to other black people who he was making music with ….” 

Another person added, “Post Malone is upset he was called a culture vulture but also believe hip hop was meaningfulness and has no soul. The very same genre he got his start in, release multiple albums in, and made him the artist he is today. This is what non-black artists can do. Rap can be a phase.”

“I love post Malone but that’s the exact definition of a culture vulture,” someone else wrote.

Check out Post Malone’s interview below.