Lil Nas X

About

Lil Nas X or Montero Lamar Hill is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia best known for his country rap single "Old Town Road."

Online History

In 2012, Lil Nas X began posting to Twitter according to an interview with NPR^[7]. Many believe that Lil Nas X was posting under the Twitter username @NasMaraj which was a popular Twitter account with over 100,000 followers which has since been suspended. On March 25th, 2017, @NasMaraj posted a tweet claiming that no one came to his dog's birthday party (shown below) which went viral and was reported on by BuzzFeed.^[11]

On December 2nd, 2018, musician Lil Nas X uploaded their song "Old Town Road (I Got Horses in The Back) to YouTube (shown below). The video gained 2.7 million views and 110,000 likes in three months, reaching 66.4 million views as of May 15th, 2019. The song gained traction on TikTok which became the reason for its initial popularity.

On April 4th, 2019, Lil Nas released a remix of "Old Town Road" featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, gaining over 710,000 views on YouTube in less than a day (shown below).

The release happened amid an ongoing controversy after Billboard removed the song from the country music charts, deeming it a hip hop song.^[4] It is unclear if the Billy Ray Cyrus remix is an intentional nod at Billboard to make the song seem "more country." Nevertheless, the song was widely praised on social media.

On May 17th, 2019, Lil Nas X released the "Old Town Road (Official Movie) ft. Billy Ray Cyrus" on YouTube (shown below). The video features guest appearances by Chris Rock, Haha Davis, Rico Nasty, Diplo, Jozzy, Young Kio, and Vince Staples. Lil Nas X also sips from a Snapple bottle labeled "Yee Yee Juice" referencing the original TikTok videos to use the track. The video gained over 40,000 views and 125,000 likes in three hours .

Reputation

In June 2019, rumors spread that Lil Nas X's had tweeted Islmaphobic messages from the account @nasmaraj, a former Nikki Minaj stan Twitter account.^[6] When asked about the account in an NPR^[7] interview Lil Nas X responded by saying:

"It's like a big misunderstanding and it's not one that I even want to give the time, because I'm never putting someone as the face of my career. So I don't even speak on it. I just don't even acknowledge it, really. I know even more things are being made up and they're gonna be out there. It is disappointing when a big blog will post something without me talking about it but, I mean, it happens."

On June 23rd, 209, Twitter user @PopCrave^[10] uploaded screenshots of the tweets acknowledging that, "The #LilNasXIsOverParty hashtag is filled with resurfaced Islamophobic tweets belonging to ‘NasMaraj,’ as well as back-and-forth among users trying to discern if NasMaraj is in fact, Lil Nas X" (shown below). The tweet gained over 1,100 likes and 200 retweets in a week.

Related Memes

Yee Yee Juice

Yee Yee Juice parodies feature portions of the song have widely circulated, typically using the names "Horses in the Back" or "Yee Yee Juice," in which participants drink juice that turns them into a hillbilly. A clip of the song was uploaded to Tik Tok by @nicemichal and used in 144,200 videos. TikTok user @nicemichaels parody gained 19,000 likes as of March 8th, 2019 (shown below).

On February 25th, 2019, the first Old Town Road compilation was uploaded to YouTube by Blissful Minds (shown below, left). The video accumulated 415,800 views and 5,200 likes in two weeks. On March 1st, a video entitled "Yee yee juice cowboy dog horses tiktok" was uploaded by Trendy and received 14,800 views in a week (shown below, right).

Panini

On June 20th, 2019, Lil Nas X announced the release of his latest single, "Panini," and his EP 7. He captioned the post, "PANINI OUT NOW EARLY!!! EP DROPS TONIGHT!!!" Within in 24 hours, the post received more than 1.75 million views, 76,000 likes and 15,000 retweets (shown below).

That day, the video was posted on Lil Nas X's Vevo page on YouTube. The post received more than 3.3 million views in 24 hours.^[1]

As the public began reacting to the song, Lil Nas X tweeted,^[2] "panini is not about a sandwich." Additionally, he included an image from the American animated series Chowder. The post received more than 34,000 likes and 3,000 retweets in 24 hours (shown below, left).

Throughout the day, others shared memes and jokes about the song. Twitter^[3] user @Iostiinjapan tweeted an image of the SnapChat Hotdog Filter and the caption "hey panini don’t u be a meanie." The tweet received more than 1,800 likes and 200 retweets in 24 hours (shown below, center). Twitter user @nicolesowdenofx tweeted a Finally, Some Good Fucking Food meme with the caption lil nas x: *releases panini early*." The post received more than 250 likes and 45 retweets in 24 hours (shown below, right).

Personal Life

In an interview with Rolling Stone,^[8] Lil Nas revealed he was born in Atlanta and spent some years living in Bankhead Courts housing project then moved in with his father in the suburbs. "Nas was a bright kid, a self-described class clown, but one who took schoolwork seriously. He started playing trumpet in fourth grade, and by junior high he was good enough to make first chair. But he gave it up when he started high school because he 'didn’t want to look lame.' 'I wish I would have stayed in it,' he says."

On June 30th, 2019, @LilNasX tweeted, "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 c7osure. 🌈🤩✨" (shown below). The tweet was read as Lil Nas X coming out as gay and received over 418,900 likes and 82,500 retweets in a day.

Search Interest

External References