Lil Nas X

Montero Lamar Hill, born on April 9, 1999, is known by his stage name Lil Nas X and is a hip-hop artist, producer, and songwriter hailing from Atlanta, Georgia. He left college in 2018 during his freshman year to pursue a full-time career in music. He explained, "Everybody thought I was crazy, I knew what I was doing. Thank you everyone, this just the mf beginning!" His stage name started off as a joke. During a January 2021 Jimmy Fallon interview, Nas shared how his stage name came to be: "Nas was like my internet alias and then when I started doing music, I was like, 'I want to have fun with this,' and every new rapper’s named Lil, Lil, Lil. What if I was Lil Nas? That’d be funny. So I was like, 'Alright, bet. I’ll be Lil Nas.' And I added the X later on." He further explained why he chose “Nas” as his internet alias during a Mike Tyson interview on November 18, 2022, saying, "When I was like a teenager, I had this guy who I was kinda like dating, but not really and his name was Nasir. Around that time, I started a Twitter account and I was like 'You know what? I need a name but I don’t want people to know it's me.' So, I was like 'oh, let's just use Nas,' and I kinda got like stuck with it." When he began making music, he realized many rappers had “Lil” in their names, so he decided on “Lil Nas.” He then mentioned, "Then, it gets worse. It’s like 'Okay, I’m Lil Nas now, blah blah blah post my music,' wait a minute, there’s another Lil Nas that exists on YouTube and Soundcloud. So I was like 'I’m just gonna add an X.'" His debut mixtape, NASARATI, came out in July 2018 on YouTube and Soundcloud, but after a lawsuit concerning its title track, “CARRY ON,” it was removed from these platforms. Nas' significant breakthrough followed the mixtape's release, with the December 2018 massive hit, “Old Town Road,” which gained popularity via TikTok memes and an April 2019 remix featuring country artist Billy Ray Cyrus. The track entered the Billboard Hot 100 in March 2019, more than a year following its original release. “Old Town Road” topped Spotify, iTunes and Apple Music, and became the first song to chart simultaneously on the Billboard country and hip-hop/R&B charts before being removed from the country charts, a decision by Billboard met with considerable backlash. His debut EP, 7, was released on June 21, 2019, to widespread acclaim, including a GRAMMY nod for “Album of the Year.” It debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, selling 77,000 units. In January 2021, “Old Town Road (Remix)” achieved the status of the most certified song ever with a 14x Platinum certification, symbolizing 14 million equivalent song units sold. In the same month, Lil Nas X launched a children’s picture book, “C is For Country,” which became a New York Times Bestseller. In March 2021, Lil Nas X released “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” and announced his debut studio album, MONTERO, which dropped on September 17 of that year. The song captured global attention, with the music video receiving mixed reviews. The Atlanta artist followed up with the May 2021 song “SUN GOES DOWN” and July 2021’s collaboration with Jack Harlow, “INDUSTRY BABY.”