Lil Nas X

Lil Nas X, born Montero Lamar Hill near Atlanta in Georgia, an openly gay black rapper, came out of nowhere to set a new record for a #1 song on the Billboard charts (19 weeks) with his first single, the country-inflected Old Town Road (December 2018), that he masterfully spread via social media and even topped the country-music charts. Ironically, after blending two of the most "masculine" and male-chauvinistic musical genres he turned out to be gay. It was followed by the EP 7 (June 2019), including the single Panini.

Mostly produced by duo Take a Daytrip (Denzel Baptiste and David Biral), his debut album Montero (2021) was basically an autobiography. Musically, it contains several catchy "pop-soul-hop" hits, starting with That's What i Want, a soaring soul lament with flamenco guitar (sculped by producers Omer Fedi, Blake Slatkin, Ryan Tedder, and Keegan "KBeaZy" Back). The range of styles, moods and tones is certainly wide, from the plaintive folk ballad Void and the pastoral folk tune Am I Dreaming (a duet with raspy singer Miley Cyrus) to the bombastic power-ballad Life After Salem. The arrangements constitute a creative strategy of the unpredictable: the flamenco guitar and castanets of the danceable Montero, the atmospheric violin of Tales of Dominica, the comic trumpet beat of Dolla Sign Slime, etc. The brass section in Industry Baby seems to mock classical music. Dead Right Now borrows the orchestral arrangement of soul music and the female choir of gospel music. Many of the songs exude a sense of dejavu as arrangements and melodies evoke all sorts of oldies. Lost in the Citadel harkens back to synth-pop of the 1980s.