Lil Nas X reached the top, again.
On Monday, the 21-year-old rapper “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” debuted as No. 1 in the Billboard Top 100, just over a week after launching the long-awaited song and video. It is their second single in the first place after reaching fame with “Old Town Road”, which topped the charts for 19 weeks in 2019.
Lil Nas X reacted to the news on Twitter, reflecting on the past two years – and the people who dismissed him as a one-hit wonder.
“You told a 19-year-old who had just escaped the lowest point in his life that he would never have a hit again. You told him to stop while he is winning,” wrote the rapper. “he could have given up. but 4 multi platinum songs and 2 # 1 later, he’s still here.”
He followed with a few more cheerful tweets.
And a very cute video he made in 2020 for his future self.
“Congratulations,” a young Lil Nas X says to himself. “You deserve all the good things that are happening to you right now.”
When he released “Montero”, which is the rapper’s legal name, he published a note to his 14-year-old self, who had not yet turned out to be gay, saying that he hoped the song “would open the door for many other queer people to simply exist”.
“See, this is very scary for me, people are going to be angry, they are going to say that I am forcing an agenda,” he wrote. “but the truth is, I am. the agenda to get people out of other people’s lives and to stop dictating who they should be.”
Since its release, the video for “Montero” has drawn criticism from some, including conservative politicians, for its satanic images and explicit sexual tones, to which Lil Nas X has had no lack of answers.
After reaching the top of the charts on Monday, he left a special message for those who hated: “I want your tears to fill my grandpa.”