Lil Nas X could’ve just released his new video and peaced out. Instead, the “Montero” and “Old Town Road” superstar is staring down his haters on Twitter.
He hasn’t exactly shied away from engaging on social media since he first blew up in 2019, of course. But as the 22-year-old star has settled into the celebrity’s life, he’s found a growing number of ways to wield his fame against those who would rather see a gay, Black rapper like him fail. Now, as the new “Industry Baby” video makes the rounds, Lil Nas X is swinging back in a way that provides us all with a more textured understanding of his latest work.
The new video, which is the latest track to be released off the forthcoming album Montero, is a trip through the fictional Montero State Prison. Its Shawshank Redemption-inspired journey casts the rapper in the starring role as he raps out verses speaking to his success, his sexuality, and the people who have doubted his rise all the way through.
The video, like the one for “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” is provocative and overtly sexual. It’s exactly the kind material that inspires outrage among America’s puritanical right. And Twitter being what it is, the critical squawking — which in lots of cases is just thinly veiled racism and/or homophobia — kicked up almost immediately.
Lil Nas X is having none of it. He’s been getting ready for the video drop all week, and even wrote an encouraging letter to his younger, post-“Old Town Road” self. “I need you to realize that you have the opportunity to be the person that you needed growing up,” he said to his age 20 self.
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As the video made the rounds on Saturday, Lil Nas X also acknowledged that while the video treats prison and incarceration with a light, positive touch, it’s often anything but for the communities impacted by the U.S. prison-industrial complex. That’s why he partnered with The Bail Project ahead of the video’s launch, kicking off a campaign to help generate funds for paying people’s bails.
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He didn’t just shout into the void, though.
Lil Nas X also used logic and basic common sense to engage directly and shut down some of the more ridiculous arguments against “Industry Baby” that have popped up. Like one critic who took issue with the Black men in the video “sexually engaging with one another” when guest rapper Jack Harlow, “the lone white man … is sexually involved with a FEMALE guard.”
Sometimes the simplest explanations are all that’s needed.
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Lil Nas X also pushed back against the idea some of his haters have embraced that his work is fueling a “gay agenda” aimed at — if I understand the ridiculous assertion correctly — making more people gay. When someone responded that agendas are real and crowd manipulation is something that happens, he wasn’t having it.
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Earlier, not long after “Industry Baby” debuted, someone took issue with the video’s approach to and framing of masculinity and femininity. Lil Nas X clapped back with a cutting debunk, suggesting that a flawed understanding of masculinity vs. femininity is really to blame for what that critic — and seemingly plenty of others, based on the discourse — saw as an “emasculation and attack on [B]lack men.”
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By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, Lil Nas X was back to cracking jokes and signal-boosting his supportive fans.
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Lil Nas X is a musical and artistic talent, no question. But it’s the way he lives — and broadcasts — his truth that matters most. When he wrote these words earlier in the week, he wasn’t just speaking to his younger self: “I need you to remember that the only person who has to believe in YOU is YOU.”
