I’ve become rightfully suspicious about album drop announcements. Now, Lil Nas X is among a group of musicians who is dropping albums this month—only his announcement comes with a confirmed date and a large number of fans who will quite literally send him pole-dancing back to hell if he pulls a Kanye…
Or a Drake.
Sure, Nas has been teasing this album release for a few months now but has never said, “the album is dropping on Friday” and then ghosted us for nine months.
In true Lil Nas X fashion, he announced his own album release hours after trolling Drake’s CLB album art. He made the announcement along with the cover art on Instagram on Tuesday, simply captioning the post: ““MONTERO” 🦋💕 THE DEBUT ALBUM OUT SEP. 17. 2021 PRESAVE LINK IN BIO 🫂”
This art is telling a story. What that story is, I’m still not completely sure. First and foremost, he is levitating—and naked—above a glimmering pond of what could be water while encircled by a dainty rainbow. The ethereal plant and fairytale energy from the cover are giving me metamorphosis vibes—hopefully, we’ll see more of his transformation into his true self in the music?
I’m also getting Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz in this album art and am interested to see what—if anything—comes of that.
There is little we know about the album itself so far; however, Nas went on the YouTube series Kerwin Frost Talks to discuss the upcoming release back in July. Rolling Stone reports Nas doesn’t just want to be known for the outlandish videos that accompany his music. “I want to inspire people. I want to tell my story and hopefully, other people can relate to it,” he said.
Back at the end of July, the album was just a spark of an idea not yet ignited into a full-fledged album. His conversation with Frost revealed that he wants his work to be unequivocally his, with everything on the album connecting to something else in a very defined way. Of course, that Lil Nas X edge isn’t going anywhere: “I really wanna let people to get to know Montero. It’s definitely deeper, but it still has [its] bops,” Rolling Stone notes.
At least he was consistent with his promotion and didn’t leave us waiting too long for a date. The songs we know will be on the album are, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” “Industry Baby” (feat. Jack Harlow) and “Sun Goes Down.” He’s has promised to drop a tracklist on Wednesday.
Lil Nas X is in good album dropping company and Grammy nomination company with Drake and Megan Thee Stallion for this year’s Grammys.