- Lil Nas X is one of the most popular musical artists in the world right now with the wildly popular, record-setting song "Old Town Road."
- The 20-year-old artist rose to fame in 2019 after his hit song first went viral on short-form video app TikTok, and has since set a record for the longest-running song at the No. 1 spot on Billboard Hot 100.
- He also made headlines when he came out as gay during the height of his viral career, saying he felt "pushed by the universe" to come out during Pride Month in June 2019.
- Here's everything you need to know about Lil Nas X, who won his first two Grammys last night at the 2020 awards ceremony for his collaboration with country artist Billy Ray Cyrus.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Lil Nas X, 20, was born Montero Hill. He grew up outside of Atlanta in a poor household and, feeling alone, turned to the internet where he found memes and an avid following for a popular Nicki Minaj fan account (though his involvement is widely debated).
Sources: Time, New York Magazine
At 19, Lil Nas X decided to drop out of college in the summer of 2018 after just a year at a Georgia university. He crashed at his sister's house while he pursued a music career and posted some songs on SoundCloud that got little traction.
Source: Rolling Stone
Then, right around Halloween 2018, Lil Nas X discovered a beat on YouTube from a then-19-year-old Dutch producer named YoungKio. Lil Nas X bought the track for a mere $30 off of a music-licensing website called BeatStars.
YoungKio's beat isn't entirely original — the producer put a trap beat under a snippet of banjo playing from a Nine Inch Nails song called "34 Ghosts IV." However, neither YoungKio nor Lil Nas X reportedly got the needed clearance to use the Nine Inch Nails song, so Lil Nas X may have had to pay the rock band some money in back royalties when his song got popular.
Source: Rolling Stone
YoungKio's beat inspired Lil Nas X to create "Old Town Road," a song that's part-trap, part-country. He told Rolling Stone the song was "basically what I was going through, but in another lens," and that he chose the title "Old Town Road" simply because of how country it sounded.
Source: Rolling Stone
"Old Town Road" was officially released December, along with a since-deleted music video featuring scenes from the Western video game "Red Dead Redemption 2." From its beginning, "Old Town Road" was intended to go viral, with catchy lyrics and "quotable lines that people want to use as captions," Lil Nas X told Rolling Stone.
Source: Rolling Stone, Billboard
It didn't take long for "Old Town Road" to go viral, as Lil Nas X wanted. By the start of March, cowboy-related videos were popping up across the popular short-form video app TikTok. Millions have taken part in the "Yee Haw Challenge," where they transform in a matter of seconds from everyday teens into lasso-holding, plaid-wearing, Stetson-sporting cowboys and cowgirls.
Source: BuzzFeed News
The virality of "Old Town Road" boosted the song to the Billboard Hot 100, where it debuted in mid-March at No. 83. Popular music label Columbia Records signed Lil Nas X just a week later.
However, "Old Town Road" was embroiled in controversy before the end of March. Besides the Billboard Hot 100 list, the cross-genre song made it to both the Hot Country and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop lists. But Billboard quietly removed the song from its hot country rankings, and claimed that "Old Town Road" should have never made it there in the first place because "it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version."
Source: Rolling Stone
However, things took a turn when country singer Billy Ray Cyrus recorded a new verse for "Old Town Road." The potential for a collaboration dates back to December, when Lil Nas X tweeted, "twitter please help me get billy ray cyrus on this." The duo released the remix for the song in April, bringing a more traditional country voice to a song Billboard initially shunned as not being country enough.
Source: Insider, New York Times
Shortly after the Billy Ray Cyrus version of"Old Town Road" dropped, the song rocketed to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
Source: Pitchfork
The forthcoming music video from Lil Nas X and Cyrus, released in May, was star-studded. Celebrities who appeared in the video — which now has more than 282 million views on YouTube — include Chris Rock, Vince Staples, Diplo, and YoungKio, the original "Old Town Road" producer.
Watch the music video for the "Old Town Road" remix here:
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As the "Old Town Road" remix remained at the top of the charts, Lil Nas X doled out more remixes of the song featuring Diplo, rapper RM of K-pop group BTS, Young Thug, and Mason Ramsey of "Walmart yodeling kid" fame. Lil Nas X has floated hints for potential remixes with Dolly Parton, Mariah Carey, and Megan Thee Stallion.
Source: Popsugar
However, one collaboration Lil Nas X didn't want to do was with presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. Lil Nas X was invited to appear at a BuzzFeed event alongside Buttigieg to recite the lyrics for "Old Town Road," but the singer reportedly refused to participate in order to avoid seeming like he was endorsing the candidate. Buttigieg later dropped out of the event altogether.
Source: Business Insider
At the height of "Old Town Road" hype, Lil Nas X released an EP in June simply called "7." The EP featured six new songs, including "Panini" and "Rodeo."
During Pride Month, Lil Nas X came out as gay, and tweeted he had "made it obvious" with the cover art for his EP. "I never would have done that if I wasn't in a way pushed by the universe," he told Time. "In June, I'm seeing Pride flags everywhere and seeing couples holding hands — little stuff like that."
Source: Time
By the end of July, "Old Town Road" became the longest-running No. 1 song in US chart history. Its 17-week run put the song ahead of previous record holders "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, and "One Sweet Day," a Mariah Carey-Boyz II Men collaboration from 1995.
Source: Pitchfork
Lil Nas X landed on the cover of Time magazine in mid-August. "Everything lined up for this moment to take me to this place," he told Time. "Not to sound self-centered, but it feels like I’m chosen, in a way, to do this stuff."
Source: Time
Although "Old Town Road" was the bonafide song of the summer last year, the track lost its spot at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 after a 19-week run. "Old Town Road" was dethroned by Billie Eilish's "bad guy." Lil Nas X congratulated Eilish on Twitter, writing, "u deserve this!!"
Source: Pitchfork
In August, Lil Nas X performed for around 45,000 Amazon employees in Seattle to celebrate the company's Prime Day. Photos from the event show Lil Nas X posing with Katy Perry, who also performed, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. On Instagram, Lil Nas X posted: "i am the now the new owner of amazon and i stole katy perry's dog."
Here's the photo that Jeff Bezos posted from the Prime Day event, which shows the Amazon CEO sporting Lil Nas X's graffiti-laden jacket.
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Source: Business Insider
The artist's success earned him 6 nominations at the 2020 Grammy Awards. He took home 2 wins: best pop duo/group performance and best music video, both for the "Old Town Road" remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. Billie Eilish's "bad guy," which unseated "Old Town Road" on the Hot 100, won song of the year and record of the year.
Source: Insider
In his first release of 2020, Lil Nas X released a remix to his song "Rodeo" featuring Nas, the legendary rapper known for his wildly popular 1994 album "Illmatic"
Watch the lyric video for the "Rodeo" remix on YouTube.