Dancing like Beyoncé in the prison yard: this is how the new Lil Nas X video has broken the internet

"Every time someone says 'We got it, you're gay,' I become 10% more gay," Lil Nas X tweeted shortly after launching

the video that has blown the heads of half the planet (three million views since its premiere, seven hours ago). And that, as he has said on occasion, he never thought he would be able to come out of the closet. Fortunately, growing up in the 21st century in a small conservative community in Georgia is not like growing up in the 20th century, and while there is still a lot to do, a

and an internet connection can open the mind, especially if used wisely. .

Lil Nas X knows he is the king of virality. He grew up making memes, running a Niki Minaj parody account, and became famous three years ago with

, a

song

made famous through one of those Tik Tok challenges and winning two Grammys. But he also knows that you can be the master of the Internet, have a legion of followers and still be the victim of an unfair system: despite being the second best-selling song of 2019,

was removed from the Billboard

chart for “ not complying with gender parameters ”, parameters that many understood as racist.

It was then that he decided to make his homosexuality public, denouncing, incidentally, the homophobia that continues to prevail in the American music industry in general and in the world of hip hop in particular.

But when he released

earlier this year, Lil Nas X went from being an advantageous member of Generation Z (so far, he has only a dozen songs on the market) to becoming a kind of idol of the new activism, the one that mixes personal experiences with the expertise to capture the digital pulse of the moment.

The video of

, in addition to a confession (Montero is his first name) is a fantasy

in which the artist flirts with the devil himself, one of those productions that blinds and makes thirty-somethings feel very old, a visual and political manifesto that exceeds 300 million views on YouTube nine months after its premiere and from which Lil Nas X knew how to make money, obviously, because if we have learned something in recent years, it is that activism is not at odds with (good)

.

From

fame was

born the very expensive network of

that the artist orchestrated to continue in the breach: Nike Air Max shoes

or, better said,

by the artistic collective MSCHF, which were sold with a drop of blood: 666 pairs to more than a thousand euros. Nike soon dissociated itself from the invention and denounced Lil Nas X last spring. Now, with the trial about to take place, the rapper has turned it into a new masterpiece,

perhaps the most interesting music video of recent times.

If Lil Nas X was thrown in jail for plagiarizing Nike, he would denounce in four minutes the American structural racism and homophobia that has undergone the hip hop scene for half a century. He would clean his Grammys in the cell, implying that the success of certain people does not keep them away from institutional injustices, he would wear a pink prison uniform and

the Jordan logo into a

typical

club

. It may seem like a minor detail, but the still patriarchal rap culture bases part of its clothing on the prison uniform (the breadth of its garments is an implicit vindication of the double American legal standard) and on a provocative and defiant attitude that does not allow a iota of sensitivity to its aesthetics.

If Lil Nas X were thrown in jail, he would literally follow Beyoncé's dance steps, finally erasing the mental barriers between female and male R&B music videos. We all know what they are. Although, in case there was any doubt, I would have a white rapper, Jack Harlow, whip an exuberant cop, redoing the stereotype to subvert him.

But, above all, if he ended up behind bars, he would comply with each and every one of the stereotypes of the prison myth, that deeply homophobic story installed since time immemorial in the collective imagination and in which a handful of "very heterosexual" men are left ' desecrate 'because they cannot repress their sexual drives: they would drop the soap, they would accidentally brush against their companions, they would fantasize about the burly white policemen. In fact, in the trailer that precedes the video, the artist films his own trial, with a judge who “coincidentally” calls his young female lover (ahem) seconds before giving his verdict and ends up simply accusing him, “ to be gay ”. A black gay in jail, with all that that entails not only in real life, but also in anyone's mind.

To delve into the homophobia and machismo that backbone the hip hop environment, just take a look on Google or watch the documentary

(2006), in which the activist Byron Hurt interviews several

of the genre reaching controversial conclusions. Interestingly, it was Kanye West (who not coincidentally co-produces

one of the first to speak out against the scourges that drag the scene in a revealing interview on MTV in 2005. It was he too who broke, at least for the

with the traditional aesthetics of rap, finally opening the musicians' imaginary to less

brands and styles

What Kanye West may not know is that Lil Nas X, his most gifted student, would end up stealing the limelight: West just published

, his new album.

But the internet doesn't seem to care anymore after seeing the Lil Nas X clip. And if there's one thing Kanye hates, besides cheap clothes, it's being stolen the limelight.

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