Lil Nas X 9,718

Montero Lamar Hill (born April 9, 1999), better known by his stage name Lil Nas X, is a hip-hop artist, producer, and songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia. In 2018, he dropped out of college during his freshman year to pursue music full-time. Regarding this, he said:

Everybody thought I was crazy, I knew what I was doing. Thank you everyone, this just the mf beginning!

His stage name was originally meant to be a joke. In a January 2021 Jimmy Fallon interview, Nas revealed part of the origin of his stage name:

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 then shared why he chose “Nas” as his internet alias during a Mike Tyson Interview on November 18th, 2022 where he stated:

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 its me.” So, I was like “oh, lets just use Nas,” and I kinda got like stuck with it.

He then started to do music and realised lots of rappers have “Lil” in their name so he decided to be “Lil Nas”. He then says:

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”

Lil Nas X’s debut mixtape came in the form of NASARATI, released in July 2018. The mixtape was released on Youtube and Soundcloud, but after a lawsuit over its title track, “CARRY ON,” it was taken off the platforms. Following the mixtape’s release, Nas' breakthrough would come in the form of the December 2018 smash hit, “Old Town Road,” which blew up through TikTok memes and its April 2019 remix featuring country singer Billy Ray Cyrus.

The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 in March 2019, over a year after its original release. “Old Town Road” reached #1 on Spotify, iTunes and Apple Music, as well as becoming the first song to simultaneously chart on the Billboard country and hip-hop/R&B charts before it was disqualified from the country charts. The move by Billboard received a lot of backlash.

June 21, 2019 marked the release of his debut EP, 7. The EP received acclaim, including a GRAMMY nomination for “Album of the Year.” It debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 selling 77,000 copies.

“Old Town Road (Remix)” became the most certified song ever in January 2021, with a 14x Platinum certification, representing 14 million equivalent song units sold. The same month, Lil Nas X released a children’s picture book, “C is For Country,” which became a New York Times Bestseller.

Lil Nas X released “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” in March 2021, following it with the announcement of his first studio album, MONTERO, which was released on September 17 of the same year. The song took the world by the storm, with the music video receiving mixed receptions.

The Atlanta native would follow up the single with May 2021 “SUN GOES DOWN” and July 2021’s collaboration with Jack Harlow, “INDUSTRY BABY.”