Lil Nas X (born 1999) is an American rapper, singer and songwriter who hit the big time in 2019 when his smash hit single ‘Old Town Road’ spent 19 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, making it the longest-running number one in the chart’s 60-year history. During the song’s residency at the top, Lil Nas X shook the music industry by coming out as gay, the first artist to do so while at number one. The homophobic backlash which predictably followed, on social media and from within the country music and hip hop communities, is something he has confronted with warmth, wit and good-natured defiance: responding to a homophobic rapper’s rant about a pink outfit he wore to the Grammy Awards, he simply tweeted ‘Damn I look good in that pic.’ His provocative videos for subsequent hit singles like ‘Montero’ and ‘Industry Baby’ are acts of queer power in the grand tradition of George Michael’s legendary ‘Outside’ video, and it is their cinematic sweep that gives Lil Nas X his place in this exhibition.
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'Cause it don't feel right when it's late at night
And it's just me in my dreams
Open for better quality
[Image ID: a digital drawing of a black man, Lil Nas X, in a wedding dress, holding a black electric guitar, kneeling in front of a stained glass window. His dress is large and billowing, but the the bodice is replaced with a button up shirt and vest with a large, multilayered cravat. He is weaing a veil that is pulled behind him, but the stained glass can be seen through it. Tables covered in lit candles sit on either side of him, in different stages of melting, billowing grey smoke. He has mascara tear lines going down his face, with tears in his eyes. The stained glass window depicts a rainbow tree above flames. The flames fall behind the man’s head to appear like horns. The man is facing away from the light, and is in shadow. The second image is simply a close up of his face, inclusing the glass window horns. END ID]