Who is Lil Nas X?
Montero Lamar Hill is a social media influencer, singer and internet personality. He goes by his name Lil Nas X. Most importantly, Lil Nas is an American rapper who rose to prominence with his single “Old Town Road”.
In 2019, “Old Town Road” achieved viral popularity before climbing music charts internationally and becoming diamond certified by November of that same year.
Personal life of Lil Nas X
Montero Lamar Hill was born on 9th April 1999, in Lithia Springs, Georgia, a small city outside Atlanta. His father is Robert Stafford, and his mother’s name is Tamikia Hill. His parents gave him the name after the Mitsubishi Montero. He has two brothers, Lamarco and Tramon Hill, as well as 3 half-brothers and 2 half-sisters.
When he was just 6 years old, his parents divorced, and he lived with his mother and grandmother in the Bankhead Courts housing project. After three years, Lil Nas moved in with his father north of the city in Austell, Georgia. He was very hesitant to do so but later shared it was an important decision in his life. “There’s so much shit going on in Atlanta—if I had stayed there, I would have fallen in with the wrong crowd.”
In his teenage years, Lil Nas struggled with his coming out to himself as being gay. He prayed it was just a phase but began to accept it around his 16s.
In his teenage years, Lil Nas played the trumpet and even reached the first chair spot by his junior high years. Still, he decided to drop out of fear of looking uncool.
In 2017, Lil Nas graduated from Lithia Springs High School. After that, he enrolled at the University of West Georgia, where he majored in computer science. He later dropped out to pursue his career in the music industry.
During his time of chasing his dreams as a singer, Lil Nas lived with his sister and supported himself by working at Zaxby’s restaurants and the Six Flags Over Georgia theme park.
In September 2019, he revisited his high school to perform a surprise concert.
In early June 2019, Lil Nas came out to his family because he felt “the universe was signalling him to do so”, despite his uncertainty whether his fans would stick by him or not.
Lil Nas X was previously in a relationship with professional dancer Yai Ariza, who appeared in his ‘That’s What I Want’ and ‘Industry Baby’ music videos.
The career of Lil Nas X
Lil Nas started using the Internet when memes became their own branch in entertainment. He spent much of his teenage years alone and turned to the Internet, “particularly Twitter, creating memes that showed his disarming wit and pop-culture savvy.”
Lil Nas shared he always aimed towards becoming an internet personality to promote his work but wasn’t sure what to focus on creatively. “I was doing Facebook comedy videos, then I moved over to Instagram, and then I hopped on Twitter ... where I really was a master. That was the first place where I could go viral.” He even posted short-format comedy videos on Vine and Facebook.
Lil Nas finally rose to prominence when he released his country rap single “Old Town Road”. In early 2019, this song achieved viral popularity. In November 2019, “Old Town Road” became diamond certified.
Most people don’t know this, but Lil Nas created traction for his first song, “Old Town Road”. He went to Reddit, where people post lyrics and try to find songs they cannot get out of their heads. On this thread, he posted anonymously, “What’s the name of the song that goes ‘take my horse to the old town road’,” leading Reddit users to search for the song, rack up Google keyword searches and listen to the track.
Lil Nas’ song spent over 19 weeks on top of the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. This is the longest time one song has run as number-one since the chart debuted in 1958. Lil Nas came out as gay while “Old Town Road” was atop the Hot 100, becoming the only artist to do so while having a number-one record. Several remixes of the song were released, the most popular of which featured country singer Billy Ray Cyrus.
From this point, Lil Nas’ career just kept rolling, and he released two singles, with “Panini” peaking at number five and “Rodeo” (featuring Cardi B or Nas) peaking at number 22 on the Hot 100.
In 2021 Lil Nas created his first album Montero, supported by the chart-topping singles “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” and “Industry Baby” (with Jack Harlow) and the top-ten single “Thats What I Want”.
Awards of Lil Nas X
At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, Lil Nas X was the most-nominated male artist and won awards for Best Music Video and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. His first song, “Old Time Road”, earned him two MTV Video Music Awards, including Song of the Year and the American Music Award for Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Song.
Lil Nas X is also the first openly LGBT Black artist to win a Country Music Association award. In 2019, Time magazine named him as one of the 25 most influential people on the Internet. In 2020, Forbes named Lil Nas X in their Forbes 30 Under 30.
The controversy of Lil Nas X
Lil Nas X is known for his controversial video stunts. Before releasing his new “MONTERO” album, Lil Nas put on a fake pregnancy suit and had a maternity photoshoot for the announcement.
For the same album, Lil Nas got overly criticized for his song “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name),” where he gives Satan a lap dance. In response to the hatred, Lil Nas created an app Twerk Hero that allowed users to make a character literally twerk to the song.
In collaboration with this song, Lil Nas created Satan-inspired, modified Nike Air Max 97s. He got sued by Nike, and social media was up in arms over this. He responded with an apology video posted to YouTube. He begins talking about the controversy, but instead of apologizing, the video cuts away and switches to the music video for the song.
He isn’t afraid to dive into controversy and flip the narrative being told into one that he controls.
Social media of Lil Nas X
Lil Nas X is one of not too many social media personalities who operates on all platforms. He very smartly leverages his social media presence into advertising his new content and makes it a hit.
On 19th May 2018, Lil Nas X created his self-titled YouTube channel. As of 2022, Lil Nas gained over 17.7 million subscribers and more than 5 billion views. On 5th April 2019, Lil Nas posted his first-ever YouTube video “Lil Nas X - Old Town Road (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) [Remix]” that accumulated over 575 million views and more than 6 million likes. On 19th July 2019, Lil Nas posted the week 17 version of his first-ever song, “Lil Nas X - Old Town Road (Official Video) ft. Billy Ray Cyrus”, which gained over 900 million views and more than 10 million likes. Most importantly, Lil Nas X is a singer and songwriter, but you can find different interviews and even one apology video on his channel.
In July 2016, Lil Nas X joined Twitter. As of 2022, Lil Nas gained over 7.5 million followers and more than 11,500 Tweets. He posts very irregularly, a few times per month.
Lil Nas X is also on Instagram, where he has over 12.3 million followers. You can find anything from high-quality modelling pictures to hilarious selfies in there. His posts gain anywhere between 1 million and 3 million likes.
Lil Nas X is also highly popular on Facebook, where he has over 3.7 million followers. This platform serves mostly for Instagram and TikTok re-posts.
On 16th February, Lil Nas X joined TikTok. As of 2022, Lil Nas gained over 27.2 million followers and nearly 1 billion likes. Lil Nas X follows the latest lip-sync trends but also advertises his new content in hilarious ways. He currently sits at the 55th most-followed TikToker spot. Only 100,000 followers behind Virginia.
Lil Nas X has his songs available on Spotify, where he has over 51.6 million monthly listeners.
How much does Lil Nas X earn? Net worth
As of 2022, Lil Nas X has an estimated net worth of roughly $8 million. Lil Nas X generates his income through ad revenues and sponsorships. Most importantly, Lil Nas is a singer and gets most of his earnings from his singing career. Old Town Road was the first song to ever sell more than 10 million copies whilst in the number one spot.
In 2018, he purchased the beat for “Old Town Road” from a Dutch producer named YoungKio for $30 million.
In March 2021, Lil Nas X paid $2.4 million for a home in Sherman Oaks, California.
Interesting facts about Lil Nas X
- Lil Nas’ zodiac sign is Aries.
- His height is 188 cm or 6’2”
- He weighs 72 kilograms or 152lbs.
- His real name is Montero Lamar Hill.
- Lil Nas X came out as gay in June 2019 on his track c7osure.
- He doesn’t have any tattoos.
- Lil Nas X is thought to be behind a Nicki Minaj Barb fan account named Nas Maraj.
- Lil Nas X won 2 Grammy Awards at the 2020 Grammys.
- His Debut Album, called Montero, came out in summer 2021.
- He has two brothers, Lamarco and Tramon Hill, as well as 3 half-brothers and 2 half-sisters.
- Lil Nas X attended the University of West Georgia for one year before he dropped out to start the music.
- He was the first artist to have a song remain at number one on the Billboard 100 for 19 weeks.
- He is best known for his country rap breakout single “Old Town Road”, which achieved viral popularity as part of the “Yeehaw Challenge.”
- His parents divorced when he was six.
- On 16th April 2019, it was announced that Lil Nas X had broken Drake’s record for the most US streams in one week.
- “Old Town Road” had 143 million streams for the week ending 11th April.
- Surpassing Drake’s “In My Feelings”, which had 116.2 million streams in one week in July 2018
- On 23rd June 2019, Lil Nas X performed with Billy Ray Cyrus at the 2019 BET Awards.
- Lil Nas X was previously in a relationship with professional dancer Yai Ariza, who appeared in his ‘That’s What I Want’ and ‘Industry Baby’ music videos.
- ‘Old Town Road’ caused controversy on the music scene when Billboard decided it was to be removed from the Hot Country Songs chart. According to Billboard, the song “does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.”
- His stage name “Lil Nas X” was a tribute to rapper “Nas”.
- In fourth grade, Lil Nas X started to learn trumpet and became the first chair in junior high.
- Old Town Road was the first song to ever sell more than 10 million copies whilst in the number one spot.
- Vogue named Lil Nas X a master of creating a glam cowboy look through his fashion sense and posts on Instagram.
- Lil Nas X made it onto Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 lists in 2020.
- On 5th January 2021, Lil Nas X released a children’s book called C is for Country. It ranked at number 8 for children’s books worldwide on this day.
- The 20-year-old rapper first released Old Town Road back in December of 2018. He had bought the song’s beat anonymously online from a Dutch producer. The producers’ name is YoungKio. Lil Nas X spent a total of $30 on the beat, not knowing that he would later make millions.
- Lil Nas X ended up adopting two Bernese Mountain dogs named Seven and Nine.
- His follow-up EP includes the popular title Panini. As a result, Chef Gordon Ramsay was willing to teach the rapper how to make a killer panini when Lil Nas X visited London.
- Lil Nas X used to supervise kids’ rides at the theme park. He told his father and stepmom that he was going to take time off school to make music.
