montero lamar hill (born april 9, 1999), known by his stage name lil nas x ( ), is an american rapper and singer. he came to international attention for his country rap single "old town road", which first achieved viral popularity on the micro-platform video sharing app tiktok in early 2019, and was diamond certified by november the same year. the song reached number one on the us "billboard" hot 100 and remained there for nineteen weeks, the longest for any song since the chart debuted in 1958. in june 2019, nas x came out as gay, the only artist ever to have done so while having a number-one record. "old town road" earned him two mtv video music awards including song of the year and the american music award for favorite rap/hip hop song. nas x is the only openly lgbtq artist to win a country music association award. he won two grammy awards for best music video and best pop duo/group performance, along with being nominated six others, the most for any male in 2019. "time" named him to their inaugural "time" 100 next list.