Rise to Fame
The $30 beat he bought in October 2018 was sampling Nine Inch Nails, which nobody expected to anchor a country-trap crossover. 'Old Town Road' hit TikTok first, then Billboard's country charts, then Billboard quietly removed it for 'not embracing enough elements of today's country music.' The backlash, widely read as racial gatekeeping, brought Billy Ray Cyrus in for a remix and pushed the song to a record 19 consecutive weeks at #1. He came out as gay that summer, the first artist to do so while holding a #1 record.
In the Spotlight
MONTERO in 2021 kicked off five Grammy nominations, a platinum album, and a Nike lawsuit over devil shoes. The provocation was working. Then 'J Christ' peaked at #69 in 2024, the TikTok of him eating communion bread went viral for the wrong reasons, and he apologized, saying the backlash triggered depression. He fired his entire team. The 'Dreamboy' era launched late 2024 with new management and Thomas Bangalter producing. The industry is watching to see if he can stay interesting without staying deliberately offensive.
Side Notes
Before any of this, he was running Nicki Minaj fan accounts on Twitter and crashing on his sister's couch in Atlanta. He grew up in Bankhead Courts housing projects, dropped out of college after a year, and spent most of his time online making memes. The 'X' in his name was a placeholder for the decade he figured it would take to get famous. He had to Google Western terminology to write 'Old Town Road' because cowboy culture wasn't exactly his world. His 2024 HBO documentary reveals he once seriously planned to be a cardiovascular surgeon. The internet had other plans.