‘Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero’ Review: A Concert Film Captures the Scrappy Grandeur of Lil Nas X Onstage, and Revealing Who He Is
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic You know you’re watching a true pop star when that person’s identity — their very existence — smashes boundaries.
Elvis Presley was a country boy who mixed country and rockabilly and the blues, and with his sneer and black hair and mascara he looked like no human had ever looked before.
Prince was a one-man band who mixed funk and rock with his own synth-pop bitches’ brew and sang, “Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?” Lil Nas X, following in the footsteps of Elvis’s blue suede shoes and Prince’s James Brown-with-wings delirium, is a Black queer confessional pop hip-hop diva who put himself on the map with a viral single, recorded in about an hour, in which he appropriated the cowboy mystique of the Wild West — and did it with a wink of pure sincerity.
In “Old Town Road,” he turned the tables on Elvis 70 years later, doing to country what Elvis did to the blues, stealing it like fire, mirroring it back to the world as righteous fun.
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