With ‘Montero’ Lil Nas X May Prove To Be the Once and Future King of Pop
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Lil Nas X’s “baby,” his first full length album, Montero, which debuted last Friday (September 17) is by any metric an undisputed masterpiece of pop music.
@lilnasxnews I think its real ???? #lilnasxmontero #lilnasx #baby #fyy #viral #real #froyoupage ♬ THATS WHAT I WANT BY LIL NAS X – lil nas x
When Nas X exploded on the music scene in 2019 with the genre defying country/pop ballad “Old Town Road” no one could have anticipated it would, including remixes, collectively peak at number one on the general Billboard Hot 100, for a record-breaking nineteen consecutive weeks becoming the longest-running number-one song since the chart debuted in 1958.
@letsvibe1995 Old Town Road (Remix) – Lil Nas X Featuring Billy Ray Cyrus #fyp #แปลเพลง ♬ Old Town Road – Lil Nas X/Billy Ray Cyrus
The Secret Origin of Lil Nas X.
Lil Nas X, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, was born April 19, 1999 in a small town outside of Atlanta called Lithia Springs.
When he was 6, Hill, who was named after the Mitsubishi Montero, moved with his mother and grandmother to the Bankhead Courts housing projects until moving in with his gospel singer father three years later. Nas X reflects on that move as a critical life changing decision: “There’s so much shit going on in Atlanta — if I would have stayed there, I would have fallen in with the wrong crowd.”
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When he was 13, he started “using the Internet heavily right around the time when memes started to become their own form of entertainment.”
He spent much of his teenage years alone, and turned to the Internet particularly Twitter, creating memes that showed his disarming wit and pop-culture savvy. His teenage years also saw him struggling with his coming out to himself as being gay; he prayed that it was just a phase, but around sixteen or seventeen he came to accept it.
After graduating from high school in 2017, he enrolled in the computer science program at the University of West Georgia, but dropped out after his freshman year to pursue music. Nas X had since high school, spent large amounts of time online in hopes of building a following as an internet personality to promote his work, but was unsure what to focus on creatively.
Lil Nas X Versus Nicki Minaj.
In an interview with Rolling Stone Nas said, “I was doing Facebook comedy videos, then I moved over to Instagram, and then I hopped on Twitter … where I really was a master. That was the first place where I could go viral.”
He also posted short-format comedy videos on Facebook and Vine.
It was during this period, that he created and ran Nicki Minaj fan accounts on Twitter, including one called “@NasMaraj”, according to a New York Magazine investigation. In 2017, this account gained attention for its flash fiction-style interactive “scenario threads” popularized on Twitter using dashboard app TweetDeck. The NY Mag investigation linked @NasMaraj to the practice of “Tweetdecking”, or using multiple accounts in collaboration to artificially make certain tweets go viral.
The @NasMaraj account was suspended by Twitter due to “violating spam policies.” After the suspension of @NasMaraj, New York Magazine’s investigation concluded that he subsequently opened a new account with handle “@NasMarai”, and that his current Twitter account at the time was a repurposed version of that “@NasMarai” account with a new handle.
After major national media reports linked Lil Nas X to the Minaj fan accounts, he called the reports a “misunderstanding,” effectively denying having run the accounts. However, in May 2020, Lil Nas X admitted, in a tweet, to being a fan of Minaj. He explained why he initially denied it, stating that if people knew he was a fan of hers, they would think he was gay: “People will assume if you had an entire fan page dedicated to nicki u are gay. and the rap/music industry ain’t exactly built or accepting of gay men yet.”
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On June 17, 2020, Minaj responded to Nas, tweeting “It was a bit of a sting when you denied being a barb, but I understand. Congratulations on building up your confidence to speak your truth.”
Lil Nas apologized to Minaj, saying he “felt so bad, hoping u wouldn’t see my denial”.
@femalerapquotes Did the interviewer really say that! #nickiminaj #lilnasx #fypシ #foryou #foryoupage #funnyvideo #trending #man #woman ♬ original sound – Female Rap
Later in a New York Times Magazine article, the fact that he was actually the owner of the account with the handle @NasMaraj, was seemingly confirmed and further confirmed when in the music video for “Sun Goes Down,” which shows Lil Nas X’s many struggles growing up as a closeted teen and embracing his sexuality, he is seen tweeting while in high school from the account.
With great power there must also come great responsibility. Uncle Ben.
In late 2018, Lil Nas X landed on music as a path to success, and started writing and recording songs in his closet.
Literally.
He adopted the name Lil Nas X, which is a tribute to the rapper Nasir Jones (aka Nas). And the sobriquet lil, after Lil’ Wayne and all the subsequent Lil’s that followed. Earlier this month he joked to the Breakfast Club ‘s Charlemagne Tha God that he wanted to see how many famous rappers names he could steal as possible in one name.
On December 3, 2018, Lil Nas X released the country rap song “Old Town Road”.
He bought the beat for the song anonymously on an online store from Dutch producer YoungKio for $30; it samples Nine Inch Nails’ track “34 Ghosts IV” from their sixth studio album Ghosts I–IV (2008). He recorded at a “humble” Atlanta studio, CinCoYo, on their “$20 Tuesdays” taking less than an hour.
TikTok motherfuckers.
@mstrunknown1 #Tiktokmotherfucker #crunchtime #inarush #hurryup ♬ original sound – Mstr Unknown
Lil Nas X began creating memes to promote “Old Town Road” before it was picked up by short-form video social media TikTok users.
TikTok encourages its 500 million global users to “endless imitation”, with videos generating copies usually using the same music; the “app’s frantic churn of content …acts as a potent incubator for viral music hits.”
Nas X estimates he’s made about a hundred memes to promote it; and the song went viral in early 2019 due to the #Yeehaw Challenge meme on TikTok. Millions of users posted videos of themselves dressed as a wrangler or cowgirl, with most #yeehaw videos using the song for their soundtrack; as of July 2019, they have been seen more than 67 million times. Another core audience tied to social media is children who are hidden in the statistics of adult listeners. Quartz.com says the song certainly owes part of its success to the demographic, and notes they are attracted to the song being repetitive, easy to sing along to, and using lyrics about riding horses and tractors, a popular genre for the pre-teen set, which children can relate to.
After debuting at number 83 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the track simultaneously debuted on the Hot Country Songs chart at number 19 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at number 36, leading to an intense bidding war which ultimately saw him land at Columbia Records in March 2019.
In the midst of this Billboard controversially removed the song from the Hot Country songs chart in March 2019 telling Rolling Stone: “When determining genres, a few factors are examined, but first and foremost is a musical composition. While “Old Town Road” incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.”
This led many accusing Billboard of racism.
In May 2019, the issues of racism in country music culture came up again when Wrangler announced its Lil Nas X collection, and some consumers threatened a boycott. Many media outlets also noted that the song brings attention to the historic cultural erasure of African-Americans from both country music and the American frontier era.
@taylorredmusic wait for it… ????❤️ #wrangler ♬ Old Town Road – Lil Nas X
That’s when Nas X came to the attention of country music star, and father to Miley, Billy Ray Cyrus who publicly supported “Old Town Road”, eventually becoming the featured vocalist in an April 2019 remix, the first of several. That same month, Nas X broke Drake’s record for the most U.S. streams from one song in one week with 143 million streams for the week ending April 11, surpassing Drake’s “In My Feelings.”
The video which was released in May 2019 had amassed a staggering 370 million views as of August 2019. NBC News‘s Michael Arceneaux wrote, “In the social media age, Lil Nas X is arguably the first micro-platform crossover star.”
The Prince that was promised.
In June of 2019, Lil Nas X performed with Cyrus at the 2019 BET Awards. On June 30, Lil Nas X made his international debut at the largest greenfield festival in the world, the U.K.’s annual Glastonbury Festival, making a surprise appearance with Billy Ray and joined Miley Cyrus onstage for the song, before performing his new single “Panini” solo in a set.
@miley.latinaa AM I DREAMING – Lil Nas x ft. Miley Cyrus disponible en todas las plataformas????????????#mileycyrus#lilnasx#montero ♬ AM I DREAMING (feat. Miley Cyrus) – Lil Nas X
After coming out gay, all on that same day, Lil Nas X became one of the most visible Black queer male singers. It was especially significant in the country and hip hop genres.
some of y’all already know, some of y’all don’t care, some of y’all not gone fwm no more. but before this month ends i want y’all to listen closely to c7osure. ????????✨ pic.twitter.com/O9krBLllqQ
— MONTERO ???? (@LilNasX) June 30, 2019
Mainstream acceptance of visibly Black queer male artists in hip hop, arguably, began when Frank Ocean came out in 2012.
When Wenner Media shipped its annual Rolling Stone Top 100 in early July 2019, three of the top ten were Lil Nas X songs: “Rodeo” with Cardi B at number nine; “Panini” at four; and “Old Town Road” at number one.
deadass thought i made it obvious pic.twitter.com/HFCbVqBkLM
— MONTERO ???? (@LilNasX) June 30, 2019
Nas X was masterful at staying in the news with no new projects until March 26, 2021 when he released the single “Call Me By Your Name,” and the accompanying music video, and revealed that his debut album would be named Montero, and that it would be released in mid-2021. He managed to always cut through the noise and stay relevant in the endless 24/7 news cycle with his masterful use of social media, in particular TikTok.
@zack_mcpeak2 People hate to see black queer men thrive and I don’t understand why. @lilnasx #industrybaby #lilnasx #ClearGenius #gay #lgbt ♬ INDUSTRY BABY – Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow
A Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored. Jedi prophecy.
In many ways Montero has been another kind of coming out for Lil Nas X. This time in a world he has almost singularly wrought. By the time he dropped Montero, he had already become the first person of color and the first openly gay performer to be listed by Forbes in its annual Highest-Paid Country Acts List.
Ken Burns, who produced the PBS documentary Country Music, noted, “Well, to me, Lil Nas X is my mic drop moment. We spend eight episodes and sixteen and a half hours talking about the fact that country music has never been one thing. … And there’s a huge African American influence, and it permeates throughout the whole story. … And here we are in a new modern age that we’re not touching, with all these classic, binary arguments about Billboard not listing [‘Old Town Road’] on the country chart, and it turns out to be not just the No. 1 country hit but the No. 1 single, period, and it’s by a black gay rapper! … It just is proving that all of those cycles that we have been reporting on across the decades — all of the tensions in country music of race, class, poverty, gender, creativity versus commerce, geography — are still going on.”
@phablouchiha lil nas x – montero (call me by your name) // #lilnasx #montero #callmebyyourname #musicvideo #viral #gay #foryou #fy #fyp ♬ som original – phablo uchiha
By the time “Call Me By your Name” was released in June, the New Yorker noted, “The frenzy of attention around the “Montero” video seemed only to fuel Lil Nas X’s taste for provocation. In July, he released the music video for a new single, “Industry Baby,” another ambitious visual feast, this time with a mischievous eye trained on the institution of prison. The clip features Lil Nas X as an inmate at Montero State Prison, a place where the prisoners wear bright-pink uniforms, and sometimes nothing at all. Riffing on Black male sexuality in the context of incarceration, Lil Nas X performs an energetic dance routine in the showers with his fellow-inmates. The song, which nods to some of the hip-hop pumping out of Lil Nas X’s home town of Atlanta, contains a triumphant horn arrangement and a swaggering chorus: “This one is for the champions.” It also has a forgettable guest verse by Jack Harlow, the faintly charming, cocksure white rapper du jour. (Near the end of the video, Lil Nas X escapes the prison when one of the guards is distracted by watching the video for “Montero (Call Me by Your Name).”
Not since Lady Gaga in her early days of stardom has an artist so fully taken advantage of the music video as a receptacle for camp, comedy, social commentary, and ostentation. And as with Lady Gaga there’s some cognitive dissonance involved in the pairing of such over-the-top videos with otherwise unremarkable pop songs. Since “Old Town Road,” Lil Nas X has yet to produce a song that feels worthy of such pomp.”
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And quite frankly he may never have to.
@rapper.editz_???????? #foryou #foryoupage #funny #lilnasx #jackharlow♬ INDUSTRY BABY – Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow
“Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” on the strength of the music video, also shot to No. 1, and helped transform Lil Nas X from a one-hit wonder into a full-fledged pop star.
@dstylezgz#lilnasx #galamet2021 #metgala2021 #lilnasxmontero #metmuseum♬ sonido original – Dstyle Zaragoza
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It underscored his savvy, although to characterize him as a marketing genius, as many have done, ignores his burgeoning artistic talents. The song, along with “Industry Baby,” turned Lil Nas X into an icon because of his unrestrained expressions of queer sexual desire. Unlike some of his most successful contemporaries—like Ocean or Tyler, the Creator — Lil Nas X refuses to participate in the game of coyness when it comes to his sexuality. (“I’m queer, ha!” he says on “Industry Baby.”)
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But Montero is not the bawdy romp that fans might have anticipated. If those singles were about Lil Nas X’s desires, the album is largely about the disappointment arising from passions left unfulfilled, or the melancholy that floods in once you’ve got what you want.
@meolegends #lilnasx #tradução #foryou #fyp #fy #monterothealbum ♬ THATS WHAT I WANT – Lil Nas X
It is also musically a departure, and he firmly embraces being simply pop.
@jules.m5Killed the performance!!???????????? #fyp @lilnasx #jackharlow #vmas #lilnasx♬ INDUSTRY BABY – Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
@itsyourcrodiePop AOTY⁉️#greenscreen #lilnasx #album #montero #rating #music #rap #popmusic #raptok #musictok @lilnasx♬ SCOOP (feat. Doja Cat) – Lil Nas X
A pop-rap album that shares almost no DNA with country music — it is less interested in musical innovation. It’s genre agnostic, a blur of hi-hats, guitar flourishes, and midrange trap beats that make you wonder whom, exactly, the record is intended for. It’s an awkward vehicle for Lil Nas X’s charisma. It also points to the insufficiency of the album as a format for the modern pop star.
Ima pop nigga like Bieber, Ha / I don’t fuck bitches I’m queer, Ha
@dizbeyyLyrics inserted by me:) This song is soo good #montero #monterolilnasx #lilnasx @lilnasx #vibe #void #lyrics♬ VOID – Lil Nas X
But it’s on the back half of Montero where he takes an unexpected turn toward the morose and the introspective.
On one song, “Void,” Lil Nas X pens a letter to an old friend to let him know that the exuberance of his public image is all smoke and mirrors. The song is spare, with a bleary electric-guitar line but not much else; in the open space, Nas is able to use his vocals to mark the contours of his emotions more delicately than on his other songs. “I spent inordinate ’mounts of time / Trapped in a lonely, loner life / Looking for love where I’m denied,” he sings mournfully in a half whisper, as if in a confessional booth. We’ve experienced Lil Nas X as an Internet troll, a hypersexual provocateur, a pop star with a Warholian visual sensibility, but “Montero” shows something different: a human being.
“Am I Dreaming” with Miley Cyrus is unbelievably moving and a whole moment.
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In many ways, Montero places Lil Nas X upon the throne that’s sat empty since the death of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince in 2016. The extended electronic guitar riffs, his outré sexuality, his penchant for nudity, and his love of the color purple are not without precedent.
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Even on a casual listen, the voices of JamesBaldwin, My Chemical Romance, Prince, Guns N Roses, MarvinGaye, Audre Lorde, A Tribe Called Quest, Madonna, Etta James, Bob Dylan, W.E.B.DuBois, NatTurner, The HarlemRenaissance, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, Sylvester, Susan Sontag, bell hooks, Marsha P. Johnson, Queen Latifah, Kehinde Wiley, ToniMorrison, MarkTwain, David La Chappelle, Jaques Derrida, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, and Arthur Rimbaud are among the many you can hear echoed on Montero.
@lilnasxshe ate this♬ SCOOP BY DOJA CAT – lil nas x
In the last three years, Lil Nas X has proved he can deftly change the national narrative around everything from religion and sex, to conventional notions of masculinity.
@lilnasxOMG OBAMA IS RIGHT EVERYBODY STREAM MY NEW ALBUM MONTERO RIGHT NOW??!?♬ LIFE AFTER SALEM – Lil Nas X
With Montero, Lil Nas X may yet prove to be the once and future king of pop.
It’s that good.
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Montero is available on Apple Music and all streaming platforms.
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