Detractors have been trying to take Lil Nas X to task and failing miserably. The hate is coming from the places you would expect. Kristi Noem weighed in on the shoes, saying, “Our kids are being told that this kind of product is, not only okay, it's ‘exclusive.’ But do you know what's more exclusive? Their God-given eternal soul.” Several people were upset by the Satanic imagery and overtly sexual scenes in the video they were also disturbed by the release of the so-called Satan Shoes, Nike Air Max 97s that included blood in the soles, which Lil Nas X put out with MSCHF. But when people feel their faith is being maligned or mischaracterized, there’s going to be chatter. It is not, however, a tacit endorsement of Satanism, as some critics say. The video is playful and deliberately provocative - that’s the point. Segura, author of Birth of a Movement: Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church, in an interview - “masculine identity fighting society's idea of what it means to be masculine, what it means to be feminine.” The video ends with Lil Nas X ascending to the heavens (after being hit in the head with a butt plug) and subsequently descending into the pits of hell - via a stripper pole - to face the ultimate big baddie: the devil himself.
There are several layers to this symbolism, as pointed out by Olga M. In another scene, he’s held captive by different versions of himself, suggesting some sort of internal struggle. The rapper is enchanted by a snakelike creature - played by Lil Nas X himself - who tempts him, opening his eyes to a world he never knew existed.
Welcome to Montero.” It’s immediately clear: This is a reinterpretation of the story of Adam and Eve. “In life we hide the parts of ourselves we don't want the world to see,” Lil Nas X says in a mystical voiceover. The video begins in the heavens, high above the clouds. So when I saw the video for Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” with its overt themes of heaven and hell, I was overjoyed to see the rapper, who is Black and gay, directly engaging with religious doctrines that have been an oppressive force in the lives of Black queer folks for generations. Countless queer people have had to either pull themselves out of religious indoctrination - or figure out a way to make it work for them - in order to live their lives as true to themselves as they can. Naturally, I looked it up for myself, and there the words were, as plain as day. As if there were nothing else to discuss, as if this was simply just the way things were. I recall specifically asking her about the line in the book of Leviticus in the Bible that says, “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination they shall surely be put to death their blood is upon them.” Was that really true, I wondered? “Yeah,” my mother replied matter-of-factly. But I needed to gain a better understanding of what this meant for my life and so I consulted my mother to get her take.
Nas hate me now controversy full#
For me, it’s one of those moments I think about because it is definitive proof of when I began to recognize that I was not straight, though it would be at least five full years before I would have the courage to utter that out loud to anyone. I’ll spare you the lurid details, but while most young men entering puberty probably envision a woman while experiencing this biological phenomenon, I distinctly remember being aroused by the image of a man.
I remember waking up in the back of my mother’s car as we made our way from Maryland back to North Carolina after a family vacation. I was around 12 years old when I had my first wet dream.