When Lil Nas X released “Old Town Road” at the end of 2018, there was no splashy launch campaign. “I was just kinda bored,” he told Apple Music. “I wanted to put something up. So that’s what I did.” But the rapper-singer's upload wound up becoming life-changing for him and world-altering for pop music. A genre-defying phenomenon that combined country, camp, virality, and straight-up hookiness, it set global chart records, forced conversations about race and genre into the mainstream, and propelled the onetime meme-maker into the spotlight. Nas didn’t coast on that seismic initial success. On his first EP, 2019’s 7, he borrowed from Nirvana (on the plush “Panini”) and collaborated with blink-182’s Travis Barker (“F9mily [You & Me]”); he also came out in the wake of the release, becoming the first artist to do so while boasting a chart-topping record. MONTERO, which followed in 2021, chronicled his life as a queer man while expanding his sonic palette—it mashed together speedy New Wave, heroic guitar solos, and stripped-down balladry; its guest list included Jack Harlow (“INDUSTRY BABY”), Doja Cat (“SCOOP”), and Elton John; and its provocative imagery tweaked the easily outraged.