MUSIC
Lil Nas X Shows How It’s Done
Star’s provocative music takes on sexuality and religion
BY STEVE ERICKSON
When conservative
pundits attack a
music video for being
too sexual, that’s
just business as usual. (Ben Shapiro
feigning an inability to read
out the actual chorus of Cardi B
and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP”
and declaiming “wet ass p-word”
instead was comedy gold.)
When a politician — a governor,
no less — takes time out of her
busy day to tweet her outrage at a
brand of sneakers created by a gay
Black rapper for supposedly promoting
Satanism, the culture wars
are proving to be a great way to distract
Americans from COVID, rampant
gun violence, and voter suppression.
Lil Nas X’s latest video,
“Montero (Call Me By Your Name),”
made an impact far beyond his
fans, as it was designed to.
Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” is
one of the biggest songs in the history
of pop music. Holding the record
for Billboard magazine’s longest
running number one song, it
has also sold 14 million copies, according
to the Recording Industry
Association of America.
Lil Nas X came out as gay at the
height of its run, fi rst with a tentative
tweet referring to one of his
lyrics and the rainbow in the artwork
for his ep “7” and then with
a more defi nite statement. While
“Old Town Road” remained a delight
even after many listens, the
genre-agnostic mindset behind
its mix of country music and hiphop
felt more like a lack of focus
on “7.” Listening to it, I didn’t get
any sense that Lil Nas X’s music
was particularly personal, as he
seemed to be trying on styles and
personae. Only on “Old Town Road”
did any of them stick. The fact that
he was making music from the
closet helps explain this.
But the commercial success he’s
achieved helped fuel his latest visual,
“Montero (Call Me By Your
Name),” which looks like it used a
special effects budget that could fi -
nance an independent feature fi lm.
His fl irtations with a performative
Lil Nas X has come a long way since “Old Town Road.”
pseudo-Satanism have a long history
in pop culture, going back to
rock bands like Blue Oyster Cult,
the Rolling Stones, and Black Sabbath.
It does not seem like a big
deal in 2021, when Match.com
made an ad in which Satan used
their services to meet his dream
date and spiritual partner.
Simultaneously, Lil Nas X and
the sneaker company MSCHF released
a limited 666-edition of
“Satan shoes” containing a drop
of human blood ((Nike sued and
a federal court blocked the sale
of the shoes in April). Lil Nas X is
out to promote himself by creating
controversy, and judging from
social media response or the You-
Tube comments under “Montero”
(and reaction videos), it’s worked.
This song debuted at number one
in the fi rst week of April.
But this isn’t an edgelord’s empty
shock value; there is actually a
great deal of artistry and a serious
point to the video. He’s using Satan
to exorcise religious trauma.
The video starts off in the Garden
REUTERS/STEVE MARCUS
of Eden, where a dreadlocked Lil
Nas X plays guitar before meeting
a sexy alien with ties to the snake
who tempted Eve. He then proceeds
to make out with him (the rapper
plays every character in the video).
This section suggests that the
foundational myth of Adam and
Eve reinforces the idea that heterosexuality
and a rigid gender binary
are humanity’s default standard,
so much so that a gay man has to
step outside the human race entirely
to escape from it.
Throughout the video, Lil Nas X
portrays non-human characters,
who are almost always (Satan) or
frequently (aliens) seen negatively.
It’s easy to understand why a gay
Black man might feel that he’s
seen as the Other and barely accepted
as human, therefore identifying
with such “monsters.”
The song itself feels like an afterthought.
Driven by fl amencoinfl
uenced acoustic guitar over
trap beats, it fi ts into a familiar
vein of melodic hip-hop. But while
everyone overlooked the references
to drugs and adultery in “Old Town
Road,” “Montero (Call Me By Your
Name)” describes a fl ing with a
closeted man in much more explicit
terms.
The fi nal third of the video takes
its grappling with religious trauma
in an even more provocative direction.
(It may have been infl uenced
by Yves Tumor’s visual “Gospel
for a New Century,” in which the
Black, non-binary singer plays the
devil as a lustful rock star.) After
standing trial, apparently for being
gay, an angel tries to kill him
with a spear. Lil Nas X turns it into
a stripper pole and descends into
hell. (This image directly lifts from
FKA Twigs’ video “Cellophane.”) He
gives Satan a lap dance, but then
breaks the devil’s neck and takes
his horns, claiming the mantle of
hell’s ruler for himself.
Lil Nas X’s videos have always
been extravagant. “Old Town
Road” riffed on the song’s rejection
by the white country music establishment.
“Panini” took advantage
of a much higher budget to play out
sci-fi fantasy. But “Montero (Call
Me By Your Name)” uses the power
of fantasy, drawing on anime and
video games, to fl ip the tables on
the cruelty of the real world. Lil
Nas X has said that when he was
14, he desperately prayed to God
to turn him heterosexual. Like the
reclamation of the word “queer,”
the video fl ips ideas that were supposed
to be negative into something
positive, indeed joyful.
If bigoted Christians believe
heaven is a country club that allows
them to gatekeep queers, religious
minorities, leftists and other
“sinners” (a concept dramatized in
the scene where Lil Nas X is cast
out of the Garden of Eden and put
in chains), hell does seem much
more like a sexy, inclusive nightclub
than eternal torment. It’s such
a self-own that Kristi Noem, a governor
described by Rolling Stone
as “the COVID queen of South
Dakota,” spends her time getting
mad at pop culture pseudo-Satanism
rather than safeguarding the
health of her state. What’s truly
devilish?
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