Everybody wants something from Lil Nas X. His fans want a constant stream of new music, videos, and laugh-out-loud content on social media. Parents, conservative politicians, and D-list rappers want to censor his art, to have him bow to their homophobic conceptions of what is and isn’t appropriate for young people to see on TV. Some (perhaps self-hating) gays want him to capitulate to the very performative cis-heteronormativy that dominates their own lives — to represent the LGBTQ+ community on the worldwide stage but not be too queer while doing so.
And all of this is just what’s been said in the five days since the Georgia-born rapper sealed his performance of “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” at the BET Awards — one of Black hypermasculinity’s biggest nights — by tongue-kissing a male backup dancer.
By the time we meet over lunch in Los Angeles that week, Nas has already addressed most of the criticism he’s received online in a way only he can: “Since y’all still doing all this over a kiss imma just fuck the [ni**a] on stage next time,” he tweeted. But prior to and in the midst of the performance, he was
