Lil Nas X: Long live Montero (now streaming on Max, formerly known as HBO Max), named after the first full-length album and given name of the “Old Town Road” breakout star, finds the rapper, singer and social media provocateur in a contemplative place as He and his team launch their first headlining tour. Directed by Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel, and filmed over two months in 2022 and 2023, during tour stops and in their new home of Los Angeles, Long live Montero! captures Nas Sure, his live show includes an elaborate, custom-designed horse. But “Old Town Road” was just the beginning…
LIL NAS X: LONG LIVE MONTERO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: It’s a dream, I wished it on a genie/I finally have fans, don’t you want them to see me? On stage at Detroit’s Fox Theater, as Lil Nas with leather straps and a shimmering gold sun-shaped fly. If you’re going big on your first national tour after a huge international success, this is certainly an expressive way to do it, with a background video reminiscent of Tarsem’s 2011 fantasy. Immortals and the largest known universe.
The themes of Lil Nas X’s live show, such as the chapter titles of Long live Montero!, are “rebirth,” “transformation,” and “becoming,” formulating the 24-year-old’s overnight viral success with the 2019 country/trap/country-trap hit “Old Town Road” on a trip. that encompasses viral spontaneity, multiple forms of creativity and not missing the moment or the opportunity. It’s one thing to make a song, promote it heavily on social media, and suddenly see it catch on; It’s another thing entirely to be the star and prepare for the tour with daily choreography sessions in Los Angeles. “It’s scary,” Nas X says in the document, a month after the first day. “They are all very good.” But the dancers are not only professionals but also a support group, and there is an easy camaraderie between them and the man of the moment, who came out publicly in the months after “Old Town Road” became huge.
“I felt like coming out was very important if I wanted to progress,” says Lil Nas huntsman, where he is often interviewed among the mess of white sheets in his bedroom. “There are still parts of me that I’m learning to accept,” he continues, a theme that the documentary supports with sequences filled with testimonials from fans about their own experiences with inclusion and acceptance of his personality. We also meet members of Lil Nas protesters who harassed his fans outside the venue.
What movies will it remind you of? In 2020, Ariana Grande documented her third world tour with Excuse me, I love youand that film’s exploration of pop star mechanics, such as the routine of learning and training for long dance routines, is echoed in Long live Montero!. huntsman and Lil Nas of 2023. Little Richard: I am everything.
Performance worth seeing: Let’s hear it for the dancers. Just like Taylor Swift’s team did in the recent Tour of the eras concert film, Lil Nas Offstage, they also become a kind of mobile moral support unit for the young star as she navigates her first big tour.
Memorable dialogue: “Tomorrow is the first day of the tour. Detroit. And I wonder: Am I going to throw it all away and just go crazy and have fun? Or am I going to freeze and crawl back into my dad’s balls? Long live Montero! He’s most lively when he lets his subject just riff in confessional mode.
Sex and skin: Well, on or off stage, Lil Nas X doesn’t wear many t-shirts.
Our opinion: Lil Nas Long live Montero!. But some of the documentary’s most interesting moments are found in the focus it puts on the conception and execution of the tour. When an artist becomes known for a viral hit, he takes up the idea that everything is just a fleeting moment for the pile of “Mambo No. 5”, how do you build a developed reality around it? and what does that look like? For Nas X, that means a lot of gold. It means dynamic choreography. It means ambitious live scenes like “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” which Nas X calls a growing-up song. And not just because he emerges from a cocoon on stage. He says “Montero” allowed him to overcome his “friendly cowboy” role and become a “gay guy in public.”
But it also means hiring a horse designer. Los Angeles-based maker and sculptor Margot Rada is interviewed in huntsman as he sews glowing LED eyes onto the incredible, gold-plated functional equine suit, which will be operated on stage by Lil Nas X and two of his dancers. Live, the moment sums up the immensity of “Old Town Road.” But it also expresses the tour’s need to be bigger and physically grander than a single song. And with that, huntsman He also gives his subject plenty of room to wax philosophical about how his life has changed, both as an artist on his first headlining tour and as a man continuing to hone his personal and professional identity.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. Follow Montero Lamar Hill as he takes the mystique of Lil Nas X on tour in an imaginative and expansive live show. But he also hangs out with him in his bedroom at his house or while dancing alone on tour buses. Long live Montero! is an engaging documentary that reveals an artist in the process of capitalizing on his dizzying journey to fame while also reflecting on his personal identity.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is a freelance writer and editor living in Chicago. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
