It’s no secret that Jaden Smith is a huge Kid Cudi fan (remember his “Fallen” video with the Man on the Moon vinyl?) and for his new VMan cover story, Jaden gets interviewed by his icon.

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The pair talk about fashion and masculinity, Pursuit of Happyness and “Pursuit of Happiness,” and Cudi’s Kids See Ghosts album with Kanye (“Can you imagine the day Kanye asked me to do the album with him? I thought he was joking,” he says).

But more importantly, Jaden lays out his mission to sustain the environment, launch water filtration systems in deficient regions, and build schools from recycled plastic through his Just Water brand.

Right now, I’m in a room where the walls are made out of probably 2,000 Just Water bottles, pressed—it can be used as a drywall, so I really want to help people create schools using these materials. If you combine a lot of plastic together and melt it down, it almost becomes cinder block. You can use trash to create an entirely new structure. People will probably give you their trash for free if you’ll take it away from them. That’s why I feel like it can spark a new industry: I’m trying to make and create so many things out of recycled plastic. If you raise the price of plastic on the ground and in the oceans, more people will begin to pick up trash.

Read the full interview here. VMan‘s The New Vanguard Issue hits newsstands on August 23.

Related: Jaden Smith Releases ‘SYRE: The Electric Album’ via Instagram