Welcome to Montero.” Lil Nas X, born Montero Lamar Hill, was using his given name for a fantastical underworld of his own making, a pastel-colored utopia where everyone could fly a freak flag. In March, he released a video for a new single titled “Montero (Call Me by Your Name),” which begins with a voice-over: “In life, we hide the parts of ourselves we don’t want the world to see. . . . Still, the extravagant music video has become the most effective way for Lil Nas X, a master of visual iconography, to make a splash. Pop culture is more visual than ever, but the traditional music video-in all its cinematic, big-budget glory-has been overtaken by bite-size, off-the-cuff material tailored for rapid consumption on social media. Lately, he’s grown into something more old-fashioned: a music-video star. In the earliest days of his career, the twenty-two-year-old musician Lil Nas X was a poster child for success on TikTok, after the platform helped propel his song “Old Town Road” to unprecedented ubiquity.
