“I think it was just everything finally catching up to me,” he says. So, after nearly a decade in the spotlight, he hit the brakes. Four years ago, Cudi was balancing his role as a famously productive rapper and trying to keep a still-nascent acting career in the air. He sounds relaxed, a feeling he’s still getting used to.

“I just binged the entire six seasons,” he says with a laugh. Then he realized home confinement has its perks: He now actually had time to do both. What he really wanted, he says, without much explanation, was to finally see the Sex and the City movie, but he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep up if he hadn’t watched the show. The musician and actor was locked down, like everyone else, with nothing to watch.