Pop star LilNasX pulls off performance art in Austin debut at ACLFest.
Montero Lamar Hill took us on the journey of how he became Lil Nas X onstage Saturday evening, and straight into the future.
The 23-year-old Georgia native was born in 1999 at the cusp of the millennium, and the outspoken gay pop star’s set was an ode to progress.
This was only the first in a series of dramatic introductory sequences set like a Shakespearean play, with a futuristic voiceover from a bodiless face onscreen to set the tone: “The greatest thing a human can be is to create themselves, to be themselves.” Nas X promptly came onstage in a gold metallic outfit early Madonna would’ve worn as a gladiator, grabbing his crotch Michael-Jackson-style to “Panini,” off his 2019 debut EP.
When he invited crowd members to twerk onstage, an elementary-school-aged boy bounced around to an enraptured audience. The entire performance was set up like a stage play, with voiceover interludes defining each act, one segment spoofing the bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, and a total of six – count them,– outfit changes.
For him, everything is a performance, an effort to both act out life itself and to be larger than. Already a tall man at over six feet, Nas X tellingly rocks a nearly-6-inch faux-hawk’d Afro – elevating the concert experience the way a museum exhibition can become performance art. That is to say, the star creates his own myth and adds to it everything a gleeful audience requires: eye candy, twerking, and leather chaps.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
The 40 Best K-Pop Deep Cuts of the Decade So Far: Critics’ PicksThese 40 selections confront the misconception that K-pop is solely manufactured bubblegum pop.
Read more »
New details released in abduction of 1-year-old girl in SE AustinThe child's grandmother told police she noticed window screens had been removed from a front window and the kitchen window, as well as items from the kitchen window sill on the ground outside.
Read more »
ACL Music Festival 2022: Friday, First Weekend - 1 of 130 - Photos - The Austin Chronicle
Read more »
Watch Live: Behind-the-Scenes from Austin City Limits Music FestivalCheck out all the best (and weirdest) moments from Day 1 of our livestream coverage at Austin City Limits
Read more »