Lil Nas X’s Montero Promotion is Practically Performance Art

Lil Nas X is having the “best week of [his] life right now.” Yesterday on Power 105.1’s Breakfast Club, he recounted the dizzying ascent of the past few days: his first red-carpet appearance at the Met Gala, winning Video of the Year at the MTV VMAs, and celebrating his baby shower. It’s all leading up to the release of his highly-anticipated debut album Montero, and the record rollout proves once again why Lil Nas X is the undeniable ruler of the internet. There are billboards. There’s an early 90s-style talk show, in which he plays himself, the host, and presumably every other character in the video. And there are contractions — as in, labor contractions, following the online storyline he’s crafted about being pregnant. The birth, of course, will be Montero, at midnight on September 17.

The billboards hilariously parody local TV lawyer commercials. Every metropolitan area has one (from Los Angeles to Chicagoland’s Peter Francis Geraci), and Nas skewers their litigiousness by promising financial compensation for fake torts like being single and lonely, hating Lil Nas X, and being gay. Another billboard mocks jingoistic grievance culture, asking “Do you miss the real America?!” while directing viewers to his site — the very same folks who worked themselves up into a frenzy over his Satan shoes and music video. It’s a stroke of pure genius; this man has perfected trolling to an art form and we bow down in respect.

He’s also going to deliver his baby (album?) via a live talk show on YouTube, which you can watch below beginning at 11pm EST/8pm PST. Grab popcorn, because if his music videos are any indication, there will be nudity, blood, a deity or two, and the heavily-produced, slick psychedelic graphics that define his vibe. We hope he took his Lamaze classes because pushing out a whole studio album sans epidural is not a pleasant experience — though he’s undoubtedly going to make it iconic. What can’t this man do?