Lil Nas X

Montero Lamar Hill (born April 9, 1999), known professionally as Lil Nas X, is an American singer, rapper,[1] and songwriter. He came to international attention for his country rap breakout single "Old Town Road", which achieved viral popularityon the video sharing app TikTok in early 2019.[2][3] The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.[4][5] At week thirteen at the top, it became the longest-running hip hop song on the chart.[6] As of July 2019, it has remained there for sixteen weeks; one of only three songs to ever chart as long.[7] His debut EP, 7, was released on June 21, 2019. His second single from 7, "Panini", remains in Rolling Stone’s Top 100 top ten after debuting there July 3, 2019.[8]

In June 2019, Nas X came out as gay, the only artist ever to do so while having a number-one hit record.[9][10]

Early life and education
Montero Lamar Hill was born in Lithia Springs, Georgia,[11] a small city outside of Atlanta, on April 9, 1999.[12] His parents divorced when he was six, and he settled in the Bankhead Courts housing project with his mother and grandmother. Three years later, he moved in with his father north of the city in Austell, Georgia. Although initially reluctant to leave, he later regarded it as an important 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."[13] He began playing trumpet in the fourth grade and was first chair by his junior high years, but quit out of fear of looking uncool. Hill attended Lithia Springs High School and graduated in 2017.[14] He studied for one year at the University of West Georgiabefore dropping out. During this time, he stayed with his sister and supported himself with jobs at Zaxby's and Six Flags Over Georgia.[13]

Career
Nas X said 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. He posted short-format comedy videos on Facebook and Vine,[13] and also created a Nicki Minaj fan account on Twitter called "NasMaraj", named after New York rapper Nas and Minaj's actual surname of Maraj. In 2015, he became known for his viral tweets and other fan page, "FactsAboutNM". In 2017, his NasMaraj account gained attention for its flash fiction-style interactive "scenario threads" popularized on Twitter using dashboard app TweetDeck.[15][16][17] After media reports linked him to the account, he denied that he ran it.[18][19]

"Old Town Road"
Main article: Old Town Road

On December 3, 2018, Hill released the country rap song "Old Town Road".[a] He bought the beat for the song anonymously on an online store from Dutch producer YoungKio for $30;[33] it samples Nine Inch Nails' track "34 Ghosts IV" from their sixth studio album Ghosts I–IV (2008).[34] Nas X began creating memes to promote "Old Town Road" before it was picked up by TikTok users.[12]The song went viral in early 2019 due to the "Yeehaw Challenge" meme on the social media app. 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.[12]

Chart debut and controversy
It debuted at number 83 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, later climbing to number one.[35] The track also debuted on the Hot Country Songs chart at number 19 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at number 36.[36] After an “intense bidding war” Nas X signed with Columbia Records in March 2019.[12] Billboard controversially removed the song from the Hot Country songs chart in March 2019 telling Rolling Stone:

In Robert Christgau's opinion, "Taking 'Old Town Road' off the country chart strikes me as racist pure and simple, because country radio remains racist regardless of the Darius Ruckers and Kane Browns it makes room for."[38]Another Billboard spokesperson told Genius, "Billboard 's decision to take the song off of the country chart had absolutely nothing to do with the race of the artist."[37] Despite being removed from the main Country Songs chart, the song charted on Billboard 's Country Airplay chart, debuting at fifty-three,[39] and peaking at fifty so far.[40] 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".[39] In May 2019, the issues of racism in country music culture came up again when Wranglerannounced its Lil Nas X collection, and some consumers threatened a boycott.[41] 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.[9][42]

Initial remixes and 7 EP
Country music star Billy Ray Cyrus supported "Old Town Road",[43] and is a featured vocalist in a remix of the song released in April 2019.[44] 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 11, surpassing Drake's "In My Feelings", which had 116.2 million streams in one week in July 2018.[45] NBC News's Michael Arceneaux noted,

The single's second official remix, "Old Town Road (Diplo Remix)", was released on April 29, 2019 featuring additional production by American DJ Diplo.[47] In May 2019, the video for the original was released and as of July, has two-hundred million views.[48]

Nas X released his debut EP, 7, on June 21, 2019.[49][50] The EP debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart.[51] On June 23, 2019, Nas X performed with Cyrus at the 2019 BET Awards.[52] On June 30 Nas X made his international debut at the largest greenfield festival in the world in the world, the U.K.’s annual Glastonbury Festival, when he and Billy Ray Cyrus made a surprise appearance and joined Miley Cyrus for the song, before performing his new single “Panini” solo in a set seen nationally on BBC.[53] 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 number nine; “Panini” at four; and “Old Town Road” as the first-ever number-one song on the chart.[54][b] Mid-July 2019, an official remix of “Old Town Road” was released adding rapper Young Thug, and yodelerMason Ramsey, to Billy Ray Cyrus;[48] Billboard counts all the versions of the song in the same total.[55]

In July 2019, Vogue noted Nas X as a “master” at giving the cowboy aesthetic a glam look in his appearances, and on Instagram.[56] In July 2019, Time named him one of the twenty-five most influential people on the Internet for his “global impact on social media”, and “overall ability to drive news”.[57]

Breaking records at top spot
In early July 2019, "Old Town Road" achieved its thirteenth week at the top spot on the Billboard 100, becoming the first hip hop song to do so.[6] It is also the first song to sell ten million copies while in the top spot.[48] It is the twelfth single in the chart's history to reach the mark, surpassing three hip hop songs that were tied at twelve weeks each: "Lose Yourself" by Eminem (2002), "Boom Boom Pow" by The Black Eyed Peas (2009), and "See You Again" by Wiz Khalifafeaturing Charlie Puth (2015).[6] On its fourteenth week at the top, it was the tenth single to ever reach the mark, with Billboard noting all but two of the previous singles had been nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.[58] 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, and each physical sale counts toward both—“Candle in the Wind 1997” / “Something About the Way You Look Tonight”, which charted fourteen weeks in a row.[10] At sixteen weeks at number one:[7] Nas X ties two other songs for the longest time to do so; "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and R&B group Boyz II Men (1995); and "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber (2017).[59]

Personal life
On June 30, 2019, the last day of Pride Month, Nas X came out as gay,[60][61]tweeting: "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 did."[62] Rolling Stone, noted the song, "touches on themes such as coming clean, growing up and embracing one's self."[63] The next day he tweeted again, this time highlighting the rainbow-colored building on the cover art of his EP 7, with the caption reading "deadass thought i made it obvious".[64][65] He was unambiguous in an interview several days later on BBC Breakfast, where he stated that he was gay and said he understands that his sexuality is not readily accepted in either the country or rap music communities.[66] The response to the news has been mostly positive but also garnered a large amount of homophobic backlash on social media, to which Nas X also reacted.[67][68] The backlash also came from the hip hop community, drawing attention tohomophobia in hip hop culture.[68][69]