Montero’s Denial

11.16.21

Lil Nas X; GQ’s Musician of the Year.

Lil Nas X continues to be at the forefront of the music industry, as a whole. From controversial music videos, to sneaker releases, his religious views, sexual orientation, and more. In Lil Nas X’s case, all publicity is good publicity, as he continues to top charts and land successful business plans. He did just that with his latest GQ Magazine interview, though he shares some times he did not feel so lucky.

GQ Magazine has presented Lil Nas X with a magazine cover and Musician of the Year. While extremely well deserved, it is very apparent throughout Lil Nas X’s music, that he has been through a lot prior to becoming the extremely confident man that he is today. Not only in terms of his sexuality, but people also thought that he would be a one-hit-wonder. Old Town Road may have been one of the greatest one-hit-wonder songs of all times, seeing as it was dozens of hits in itself. However, Nas is continuing to drop chart-topping-singles, as well as an album that put up numbers.

During Nas’ GQ interview, they asked about the features on the album, and how many people were down to be featured, versus whom were not. Lil Nas X responded that he does not always chase the features, but when he did on his album, they all worked, expect for two: Nicki Minaj and Drake.

Lil Nas X states that he did not reach out to Nicki and Drake directly, but their teams reached out, and reached out with a plan. Nas wanted to have Nicki Minaj on Industry Baby, and Drake on Dolla Sign Slime, featuring Megan Thee Stallion. Clearly, Jack Harlow took the role of Nicki on Industry Baby and Megan was the sole feature on Dolla Sign Slime.

We do not have much more information on the conversation between parties, other than it did not work out with either of the artists. Maybe it was bad timing with Nicki giving birth to her first son, and Drake working on CLB. Or, maybe they were not feeling what Lil Nas X was representing at the time. You really never know.

I can certainly see Drake being on Dolla Sign Slime. The whole song is just a beat that you would rap-sing to. Exactly what Drake and Nas are good at. I did not like Megan’s verse at all. She cannot do the rap-sing thing, so it just did not seem like a good fit for me. It is interesting that Drake and Megan do not have music together yet. Perhaps they have something in the works that they wanted us to hear first. This is a reach, I know, but it seems interesting that everyone wants to collaborate with Megan besides Champagne Papi, who just wants to bring her out to shows instead.

Nicki Minaj on Industry Baby is so interesting to me. From the sound of the interview, it would not have been Nicki and Jack Harlow, it was always one, if not, the other. Lil Nas X spoke on the matter saying Jack Harlow got the song and it definitely worked out for the best, given it being another massive hit, and the two have an amazing relationship. Nas also stated he is unsure of how Nicki would have felt with the music video concept, given there were lots of naked men, a jail scene, etc. Given Nicki not really caring about what anyone else thinks, I would assume she’d be down. I mean, the Barbz would have went nuts for this. But would it have stuck as strongly as the Jack Harlow feature? I mean, Jack made this thing go viral with her verse, and comments on the video. I would have liked to see Nicki on just about any other song.

So far, no comments from Drake or Nicki Minaj, but I would not be surprised if we did not hear something from them soon. Do we need this collaboration, or nah?