The Unexpected Rise of a Former One-Hit Wonder: Lil Nas X a.k.a. Montero
Love him or hate him, Lil Nas X is dominating 2021. After chart-breaking hits like “SUN GOES DOWN” and “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”, and appearing on numerous tv and web shows, his ultimate bomb, “INDUSTRY BABY,” featuring Kentucky rapper Jack Harlow, is what turned him into the artist to watch out for right now.
His first full-length album, MONTERO, was a long-awaited project that came as a shock to those who saw him as a one-hit-wonder for his 2018 megahit “Old Town Road”, featuring country legend Billy Ray Cyrus. And Lil Nas X is extremely self-conscious of this, but instead of relying on this one track for the rest of his life and retiring at the age of twenty, he decided to plan the biggest comeback seen in recent years with an album that is not only ambitious but tri-dimensional and extremely well-written.
How It All Began (Again)
The marketing campaign for Montero started on a specific day: June 30th, 2019, the last day of Pride Month. That day, Lil Nas X tweeted: “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 c7osur,,” followed by the rainbow, heart-eyed and shiny emojis.
In a way, that marked the day Lil Nas X started making headlines again after he publicly came out as gay, something that is not easy to admit in an industry that has been known as homophobic for decades — and it continues to be as DaBaby’s controversy proves, for instance.
Fast-forward to 2021, Lil Nas X’s aesthetic changes drastically from the sober Southern “cowboy-ish” look of “Old Town Road”, although maintaining the country influences in his music - as some of the guitar riffs in the new songs show - the rapper was now going for a more polished and calculated image and style, clearly queer in nature.
After a few tracks nearly no one cared about, he released the leading single “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”. As he explained to Genius, the song is a clear reference to Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 movie “Call Me by Your Name,” based on the homonymous novel by André Aciman. Although one could think that the rapper might be going for the same relaxed aesthetic as the one conveyed in the book and movie adaptation, the visuals for the music video actually contradict this assumption. In fact, the video opens with Lil Nas X pole-dancing his way to hell and ends with him giving a lap dance to Satan, right before breaking his neck and replacing him as the undisputed lord of darkness.
during his Verified interview, the rapper also commented on the lines, “I want that jet lag from fuckin’ and flyin’ / Shoot a child in your mouth while I’m ridin’”, lines that, according to the artist, left most people in the recording studio speechless as soon as he uttered them. Yet, he decided to go through with it, and the song turned into one of the sexy hits of 2021 — or at least it did for me.
A Queer Coming-of-Age Album
To balance this sensual energy, the following single, “SUN GOES DOWN,” is an anthem to the insecurities that the rapper felt as a teenager, which is why I’m calling MONTERO a queer coming-of-age album: “Since ten, I been feelin’ lonely / Had friends, but they was pickin’ on me / Always thinkin’, “Why my lips so big? / Was I too dark? Can they sense my fears?”
Here Lil Nas X is being vulnerable with his fans, who supported him through it all, especially the dark moments when he needed a gun to “see the sun”. The artist also hints at the difficulties of hiding his sexuality for so long, while he is now setting an example for millions of young LGBTQ+ people that see him as a role model.
As if it wasn’t enough, a few months later, Lil Nas X dropped the absolute bomb, the track he had been working on for months and that was now seeing the light: “INDUSTRY BABY”, featuring a then-unknown Jack Harlow. One might have asked, why him? The answer, my friends, is in the song, and the video: Jack represents the perfect yin to Lil Nas X’s yan, both musically — there rap styles are very different — and conceptually, as one is unapologetically straight, the other unapologetically gay.
It is very hard to describe it, but when an artist focalizes his music on a specific message, like being proud of their queer identity, it is a jaw-dropping moment when that same artist features another that gives the complete opposite vibes: specifically, I don’t think anyone expected a hot prison to appear in the middle of the video during Jack’s verse.
This might be a small detail, but to me, it was really affirming to the fact that Lil Nas doesn’t owe anything to anyone when it comes to his music. He clearly sends LGBTQ+-friendly messages, but he does not follow an agenda and could decide to come out - pun intended - with something completely different the next day.
From Megan Thee Stallion to Elton John: Influences and Features in MONTERO
Broadly speaking, the singles I’ve just mentioned really exemplify the themes and symbols of the album as a whole, but the rest of it is just as coherent and enjoyable.
“THATS WHAT I WANT” might be the perfect balance between “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” and “SUN GOES DOWN:”. In this song, Lil Nas shows a vulnerable part of himself when talking about his sexual and romantic needs, as also represented by the reference to the movie Brokeback Mountain in the video, released right when the album came out.
“DONT WANT IT”, on the other hand, wants to convey the same vibe as “SUN GOES DOWN”, but with a twist. “And I’m fuckin’ living proof that if you want it,” Lil Nas sings. “You can have anything right before your eyes.” Although his physical insecurities and sense of loneliness tried to bring him down on his path to fame, he still wants everyone to know that, if he, an ordinary kid from Georgia, made it, then anyone can, no matter their background, sexuality or appearance.
Regarding the features with other artists, we find the beautiful piano arrangement by arguably the first-ever gay icon Elton John in “ONE OF ME”. In a way, Lil Nas is doing with rap what Elton John did with pop music in the Seventies, by redefining what an MC is supposed to dress like, so it totally makes sense to have a “cameo” by the British singer-songwriter in this coming-of-age odyssey.
Lil Nas also collaborated with Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion in the super catchy “SCOOP” and “DOLLA SIGN SLIME”, respectively. The former, in particular, starts with the very self-explanatory lines “I been workin’ on my body / You ever seen a n*gga hit pilates?” This quote alone exemplifies the stereotypes put on black gay men who need to live up to certain standards of masculinity, but Lil Nas continues working on himself and his music and not just his body, as if none of that mattered.
The ending song of the album, “AM I DREAMING,” features no less than another member of the Cyrus family: Miley Cyrus. The track’s arrangement consists of a sober and even melancholic guitar riff, over which Lil Nas asks to “never forget me / And everything I’ve done.” On his way to hell, connected to the Montero music video, he “relives” his story: “Every song, every dream filled with hell from beyond.” At the end of the song, we hear the sound of something plunging into the water, which might be Lil Nas himself throwing himself in a lake.
However, the serene nature of the song gives out a feeling of hopefulness instead of defeat. And, even if Montero’s journey was to end in the water, at least he got the chance to tell and “rewrite” his story, even after a worldwide hit like “Old Town Road”.
The ambitious nature of Lil Nas X’s first full-length album will inspire generations to come, teaching them that, no matter how big you make it once, you can make it even bigger if you really want it. And this, ladies and gentlemen, makes him the single most shiny star in the rap firmament of 2021.