Lil Nas X

Montero Lamar Hill is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter who performs beneath the stage name of 'Lil Nas X.' In 2018 he released a Mixtape titled Nasarati, followed by a 2019 album entitled 7.

Montero himself said that he began to isolate himself from "outside-of-class activities" during his teenage years. He 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. In a Rolling Stone interview he stated, "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." As of August 2019 Nas X has: 2.3 million followers on Twitter; four million followers on Instagram; 5.2 million subscribers on YouTube, and over 44 million monthly listeners on Spotify. He posted short-format comedy videos on Facebook and the now deleted Vine. During this period, he reportedly created and ran Nicki Minaj fan accounts on Twitter, including one called "@NasMaraj", according to a New York Magazine investigation. In 2017, the above account gained attention for its flash fiction-style interactive "scenario threads" popularized on Twitter using dashboard app TweetDeck. The 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 changed handle. After media reports linked Nas X to the Minaj fan accounts, he called the reports a "misunderstanding", effectively denying having run any of the accounts.

He then landed on music as a path to success, and started writing and recording songs in his closet. He adopted the name Lil Nas X, which is a tribute to the rapper Nas (real name Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones). In late October 2018, he ran across the music that would be "Old Town Road". On December 3rd, 2018, 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 as to which was released in 2008. He recorded at a “humble” Atlanta studio, CinCoYo, on their "$20 Tuesdays" taking less than an hour. 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 himself estimated that he made about a hundred memes to promote it; 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 was children who were hidden in the statistics of adult listeners. Quartz.com said 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, which kids can relate to.

It debuted at #83 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, later climbing to #1. The track also debuted on the Hot Country Songs chart at #19 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at #36. After an "intense bidding war", Nas X signed with Columbia Records in March 2019. Billboard controversially removed the song from the Hot Country songs chart in March 2019 due to a lack of embracement of enough elements of 21st century country music. In Robert Christgau's opinion, "Taking 'Old Town Road' off the country chart" stuck them as heavily racist. Despite being removed from the main Country Songs chart, the song charted on Billboard's Country Airplay chart, debuting at #53, and peaking at 50. In response, Sony Music Nashville CEO Randy Goodman told Billboard that his team started testing the song in some country radio markets, adding "it would be negligent not to look at it". 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. 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.

Country music star Billy Ray Cyrus supported "Old Town Road", and became 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 in one week with 143 million streams for the week ending April 11th, surpassing Drake's "In My Feelings", which had 116.2 million streams in a week in July 2018; as of August 2019 it has streamed over a billion plays on Spotify alone. In May 2019, the video was released and as of August 2019, has over 370 million views. Nas X released his debut EP, 7, on June 21, 2019. The EP debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 chart. On June 23rd, 2019, Nas X performed with Cyrus at the 2019 BET Awards. On June 30th, Nas X made his international debut at the largest greenfield festival in the world, the U.K.’s annual Glastonbury Festival, when he and Billy Ray Cyrus made a surprise appearance and joined Billy's daughter Miley Cyrus for the song, before Nas X performed his new single "Panini" solo in a set seen nationally on BBC. On the same day, Nas X became one of the most visible Black queer male singers when he came out as gay. This was especially significant for an artist in the country and hip hop genres, both of which emphasize machismo and “historically snubbed queer artists”. Black queer male artists in hip hop having mainstream acceptance arguably started in 2012 with Frank Ocean’s coming out just before Channel Orange was released. For end of June 2019 sales, Rolling Stone premiered the Rolling Stone Top 100 in early July with three Nas X hits: "Rodeo" featuring Cardi B at #9 ; "Panini" at #4; and "Old Town Road" as the first-ever #1 song on the chart.

Nas X has been noted for his public fashions; in July 2019, Vogue noted Nas X as a "master" at giving the cowboy aesthetic a glam look in his appearances and on Instagram. His stylist, Hodo Musa, says he aims for items that are “electric, playful, colorful, and futuristic.” For his on-stage look at the 2019 MTV VMA Awards he wore a cowboy motif cherry-red Nudie suit. Wrangler, which is mentioned in the “Old Town Road” lyrics, has consistently sold out of Nas X co-branded fashions. In July 2019, Time named him one of the 25 most influential people on the Internet for his "global impact on social media", and "overall ability to drive news". In late July 2019, the MTV Video Music Award (VMA) nominations were announced, with Nas X receiving eight. He performed ”Panini,” an ”ode to the cartoon rabbit of the same name from Cartoon Network’s Chowder,” with a troupe of ”Tron-inflected dancers” at the 2019 MTV VMAs, where he also won two awards: Song of the Year, for which he is the first LGBTQ person to do so; and the video's Calmatic for Best Direction.

He was nominated for five fan-chosen 2019 Teen Choice Awards, winning Choice R&B/Hip-Hop Song for the Cyrus remix of "Old Town Road". "Old Town Road" is also the YouTube top song of the summer in the U.S. and over fifty other countries and territories; it is also their second top global song of the summer. The Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ remix also won the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards collaboration category, CMA Music Event of the Year; Nas X is the first out gay man to ever be nominated for a CMA award, and the only openly LGBTQ person to win. Vox noted the Event Award is not a part of the CMA televised celebration, and they snubbed Nas X from bigger appropriate categories.

The "Old Town Road" remix with Cyrus had been nominated for a People's Choice Award for Song of 2019, Nas X is also nominated for Male Artist of 2019; the 45th People's Choice Awards will be held in November 2019. In October, at the 2019 BET Hip Hop Awards Nas X, with Cyrus, won for Best Collab/Duo or Group, and Single of the Year Also in October 2019, Nas X's label Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment, won the Music & Sound Recordings Award from SAG-AFTRA for “Old Town Road (Remix)” featuring Cyrus; the awards are presented “for work that exemplifies equal access” of LGBTQ and “other misrepresented or underrepresented groups.” 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.”

"Panini" was released as Nas X's second single through Columbia Records in June 2019. It is named after the fictional cabbit of the same name in the animated television series Chowder, and does not refer to the sandwich of the same name. In mid-September 2019 "Panini" had its first remix with rapper DaBaby released. In early July 2019, "Old Town Road" achieved its 13th week at the top spot on the Billboard 100, becoming the first hip hop song to do so. It is also the first song to sell ten million copies while in the top spot. On its fifteenth week at the top, Nas X became the first openly gay artist to have a song last as long, beating out Elton John’s 1997 double A-side—where both sides of the record are promoted as hits, "Candle in the Wind 1997"/"Something About the Way You Look Tonight". At nineteen weeks at #1, Nas X holds the record for the most weeks since the chart was first introduced in 1958. As of August 2019, the song has also charted nineteen weeks atop the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart; beating a three-way tie record. At nineteen weeks at the top of the Hot Rap Songs chart the song has also beaten a three-way tie. By November 2019, the song was Diamond Certified, moving a combined sales and streaming ten million units. He has won four awards out of twenty-seven nominations. On Friday November 13th 2020 he released a new single entitled 'Holiday', which ultimately peaked at #23. He later went on to release a single entitled Montero (Call Me By Your Name). On Friday 2nd April 2021 Montero (Call Me By Your Name) both entered The Official Chart Top 40 and peaked at #1. On May 21st 2021 he released a new single entitled SUN GOES DOWN. On July 22nd 2021 he released the single Industry Baby which featured Jack Harlow. On Friday 30th July 2021 Industry Baby entered the Official Chart Top 40 at #13, before later peaking at #3. On September 17th 2021 he released a new single entitled That's What I Want, and later released an album entitled Montero. The following week on Friday 24th September 2021 That's What I Want entered the Official Chart Top 40 and peaked at #10, and the album Montero peaked at #2 in the Official Albums Chart Top 100.

Track Discography
Disclaimer: This discography only includes either originals or first remixes.
 * Old Town Road (Lil Nas X or Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus)
 * Panini (Lil Nas X)
 * F9mily (You & Me) (Lil Nas X with Travis Barker)
 * Kick It (Lil Nas X)
 * Rodeo (Lil Nas X with Cardi B)
 * Bring U Down (Lil Nas X featuring Ryan Tedder)
 * C7osure (You Like) (Lil Nas X)
 * School Globes (XXXTENTACION featuring Lil Nas X)
 * Holiday (Lil Nas X)
 * Montero (Call Me By Your Name) [Lil Nas X]
 * SUN GOES DOWN (Lil Nas X)
 * Industry Baby (Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow)
 * That's What I Want (Lil Nas X)