He’s also teased a Kesha feature, a new era without a label, and a pivot into gospel music.
Lil Nas X (Supplied)
Hell hath no fury like Lil Nas X wanting to start some drama: later this week, conservatives’ favourite rapper (to throw tantrums over) will release at least one new single, which should generate a decent bit of controversy.
Over the weekend, the rapper (real name Montero Hill) posted a TikTok seeming to confirm his plans to release a new song this Friday (January 12), teasing in the process that he’s “about to expose the industry” and “need[s] to watch [his] back for the next seven days”. He’s since posted another three videos alluding to the pot he plans to stir, saying in one that he plans to “expose y’all favourite artists next week”.
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In another, Hill told fans he’s “in a secluded place where no one will find [him]” and posed the question, “Do y’all notice how a lot of celebrities went quiet after I said I’m about to start exposing people?” Hours later, he posted a video of himself posing with police officers, captioning the clip, “Me staying with the police department 24/7 for the best five days before I expose the music industry for what they did to me. Evil will not stop what God has planned.”
Hill has also posted frequently about his faith, hinting strongly at a pivot into gospel music and claiming in one TikTok that “the industry tried to make [him] satanic”. In one clip posted to the social video platform, he said he’d be releasing his new track independently “because [his] label doesn’t want [him] to make gospel music”.
In the caption for another, he shared, “…The media stopped supporting me after I started promoting God to the masses. And ... the industry is wicked which is why I was blackballed from releasing music for the last year and a half. But I’m finally independent now and will be dropping a new song next week.”
Meanwhile, on Twitter, Hill has gassed his return to the spotlight up as “the greatest comeback of all time”. Last Thursday (January 4), he dropped the bombshell that a new song of his “features a very beloved popstar who [he’s] been a fan of for a long time”, and noted that its music video – which he reportedly shot in Brazil, with direct inspiration from a herd of capybaras (or as he labelled them, “giant hamsters”) – will be premiered at churches in New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles.
That aforementioned popstar was teased to be Kesha when Hill posted two photos: one of her standing in traffic with a handwritten sign reading “NEW MUSIC COMING SOON!”, and one of Hill standing on the corner of a street with a sign of his own reading “WHAT SHE SAID!”.
1•12•24 pic.twitter.com/kXe09qg6Sp
— ✟ (@LilNasX) January 5, 2024
Kesha herself teased that Hill would in fact be releasing two songs this week; after the latter posted that his forthcoming track “was inspired by the January 6 events” (when in 2021, a group of Donald Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol Building), Kesha declared, “I’M. NOT. ON. this one.....”
It comes after Hill made waves for responding to a homophobic “joke” made by Dave Chappelle in his latest Netflix special, The Dreamer. In one section of the hour-long feature, the formerly talented comedian quipped that Lil Nas X was “the gayest n**** that ever lived”.
Meanwhile, Hill toured Australia at the start of last year. In a glowing review for The Music, Thomas Hills wrote of his Sydney (Eora) show: “[Lil Nas X’s] live performance is transcendent because it doesn't rely on any one thing. Not his vocals, not his charisma, not his showmanship, not his dancers, not his visuals. Everything is interwoven so thoughtfully and choreographed so effectively that it lifted the collective spirit of all present.”