When we first see Lil Nas X, aka Montero Hill from a leafy north Atlanta suburb, he is talking about how he wants his first headlining tour to be fantastic. You have to “do something grand and big” just once, he says. Then another time. And another time. And another, and another, and… You get the point: he’s a larger-than-life perfectionist. Nothing shows this better than the fantastic stage show he puts on during his 2022-23 Long Live Montero tour, the ostensible focus of this new HBO original documentary.
With the help of an energetic coterie of producers, choreographers, videographers, and even “horse designers,” Lil Nas X brings his vision of an extravagant, kinetic concert to life. Like Nas himself, the stage production revels in doing the most. What the documentary crew provides is a glimpse behind the scenes. Directors Carlos López Estrada (Raya and the Last Dragon) and Zac Manuel capture the things we’ve come to expect from a peek-behind-the-curtain concert film — sweaty choreography practice runs, queues of adoring fans outside the venues, delicate hair and makeup sessions — but also some things we don’t.
It’s legitimately heartwarming to see confessional shots of fans, many of whom are queer people of color, explaining what Lil Nas X means to them. More than one talks about what Lil Nas X made them realize about things like self-love and self-care, especially as it concerns people who feel marginalized by a society that sees them as offensive simply for being themselves. Nas is their hero for being openly queer in every sense of the term. It is when it covers topics like this that the documentary is at its best.
Nas is surprisingly candid. When it begins, the film seems like it might just be another film about what it’s like to be on tour. The singer might have a meltdown. There could be a minor electrical/mechanical inconvenience that threatens to prematurely end the show until an enterprising stage tech gets the problem figured out just in time. We’ll see the crew’s antics on the road throughout, and then the credits will roll as the musician takes their last bow. In short, the movie, at first, threatens to be a queer version of The Up in Smoke Tour. But then Nas starts talking about his life.
It’s small doses at first. We learn about how his great-grandmother’s death led to anxiety issues that made music production a necessary escape. We meet his nephew Chase, an adorable nine-year-old who goes with his uncle everywhere. We start to see a few of his (many, many) brothers. Then Nas talks about what coming out meant for him. It’s about here that I should say that this movie is very, very gay. And I say that lovingly.
At its best, Long Live Montero is about Black queer self-love, and it frames any instances of its subject being flamboyant or “extra” as a joyful stretch of a long, hard road towards self-revelation and self-acceptance. Lil Nas X employs as his backup dancers other queer men of color who may have faced similar journeys. He admits to feeling most like himself when he is with them. They are his subordinates, but they also seem to make up his found family. This is not to say Nas is estranged from his biological family, but there are tensions about which he is refreshingly honest.
Lil Nas X first came out to his father, Robert Stafford. The gospel singer wondered aloud whether or not his son, who had just blown up to superstardom fast enough to merit “industry plant” speculations, was just being “tempted” by the devil and the excesses of fame. It hadn’t occurred to him that one does not “turn” gay. It’s this tension between who he is and who his family sees him as that makes Nas most compelling to watch, particularly during his Atlanta homecoming.
Here, we see glimpses of a Nas who (perhaps inadvertently) does a type of code-switching. He’s less loud and his register is more subdued, more in line with his brothers’ bassy Atlanta twang. He more conspicuously performs masculinity in a way he probably did for years before coming out and even after. He almost tells us as much when he admits that, when he first came out, he was “against doing anything feminine.” “I wanted to stay an acceptable gay person,” he says, imagining an invisible, conservative audience that happily notes, “‘This is the one that doesn’t shove it down our throats.’” Time has a way of happily changing folks.
HBO’s Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero may not do much for you for most of its runtime unless you are a Nas fan. Much of it is your average concert film fare with nothing new to offer as far as the genre is concerned. However, fan or not, what is most compelling about this film is its glimpses into Nas’ growing sense of self-discovery. Going from a potential internet one-hit-wonder to a queer icon notable enough to get free press in Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special cannot be an easy journey. And issues with this can be compounded by having to come to grips with yourself despite yourself.
If Lil Nas X is, as Chappelle says, “The gayest n**** alive,” then he deserves to be. It’s better than the self-effacing alternative. And though the movie ends with a butterfly motif — something that implies having reached a final form — Nas rightly tells us that this is only the beginning. At the young age of 24, Montero Hill is only now meeting himself. Time will show us the many more metamorphoses to come.
Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero premieres Saturday, January 27, 2024, at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max.
