‘Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero’ Creates Space for Greatness Without Filling It
Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, the artist known as Lil Nas X lays down his ambitions to achieve something “great, super grand, BIG.”He might be referring to his trailblazing career as a Grammy-winning rapper-singer-songwriter, whose unabashedly queer persona and presentation garner admiration and controversy in equal measure.He could mean his first concert tour as a headliner, the Long Live Montero Tour, the American leg of which is chronicled in this film by directors Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel.There’s little doubt he envisions greatness for himself, Montero Hill, the self-described brat from Lithia Springs, Georgia, who uploaded his modest country-rap banger “Old Town Road” to his socials and became a global sensation.The film, a verité-style tour diary in three acts, doesn’t achieve greatness of its own, but offers glimpses at those aforementioned aspects of Montero’s super grand life.Whether rehearsing for opening night at Detroit’s legendary Fox Theatre, getting a surprise pre-show visit from Madonna, or donning his drag persona to meet his uncannily accurate Madame Tussaud’s wax figure, he rides the dizzying whirlwind of music stardom with aplomb, clearly living out a dream.Among the most compelling footage presented here is the video he shot himself in 2018, as a striving but confident 19-year-old, a month after releasing “Old Town Road” to the internet. Looking into the camera, he tallies his current follower count, promising that in a year the count will look different.