Lil Nas X live review — extravagant London show signals arena star in the making

“I want someone to love me,” Lil Nas X cried out at the Hammersmith Apollo: “I need someone who needs me.” The song was “Thats What I Want”, a breezy hit that casts a covetous glance at OutKast’s 2003 single “Hey Ya!”. Its originality lies in the identity of the person who the US pop-rapper wants to love him, “an afro black boy with the gold teeth”. The song’s rendition ended with him and one of his male backing dancers getting moon-eyed with each other as the stage curtains swished shut. The pair were silhouetted by back-lighting in a passionate clinch. Cue thunderous cheers and whoops from a packed house.

Although same-sex desire is no stranger to the US charts and black American pop — witness Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”, a foundation stone of rock and roll — it is a love whose name is spoken with unusual daring by Lil Nas X. Those who dismissed him as a novelty one-hit wonder following the runaway success of his country-rap crossover “Old Town Road” in 2019 have been forced to eat their words. Like the drum fanfare that greeted his entrance at the Apollo, his name now comes prefaced with weighty accolades. The 23-year-old, aka Montero Lamar Hill, has been variously acclaimed as a “visionary”, an “LGBTQ icon”, a “boundary-smashing pop revolutionary”. He has become a symbol of progress and tolerance.

His one-off London show came during his first tour of the US and Europe. Held in a midsized venue, it presented him as an arena star in the making. The setlist was split into different acts, each of which had sonorous titles that meant much the same thing (“Rebirth”, “Transformation”, “Becoming”). Screens displayed elaborate CGI visuals, starting in outer space and then landing on the pink planet that is Nas-world, where brightly coloured stately rooms and pleasure palaces provided a backdrop to his songs. There were many costume changes, a fantastically dandyish array of glittery crop tops, tight gold trousers, codpieces and 18th-century buckle shoes. They were designed in collaboration with New York fashion house Coach.

The music came from backing tapes. The vocals were partly pre-recorded too, intermixed with competent live singing and rapping by Nas. He has a low voice, verging at times on the lugubrious, as in the opening track “Panini”, with its curious combination of an insouciant whistled melody and a glum hookline borrowed from Nirvana’s “In Bloom”. Eight backing dancers, all men, invariably shirtless, accompanied him. Their choreography was impressive and witty, ranging from balletic spins to vigorous twerking.

Drawing mainly on his debut album Montero, the setlist required padding to stretch to 75 minutes. The Western-themed “Old Town Road” was accessorised by a life-size puppet horse and the ingenious interpolation of Ginuwine’s hit song “Pony”, a classic of 1990s R&B. The celebration of sex in “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” was boldly preluded by a comic film showing Nas in the role of a homophobic preacher at an evangelical meeting. But there were dull moments of padding too, such as the pausing of a new song to bring audience members on stage for a clumsily managed twerkathon.

Absent from this colourful but rather pre-formatted concert was the unscripted persona that Nas brings to his busy social-media life. The singer who needs someone to need him came across on stage as a showman-in-waiting, not yet sure how to navigate his need for the audience and its need for him. Learning how to be both a worthy symbol of progress and a fun, escapist pop star — allowing the latter room to breathe amid the earnest pressure of the former — is the challenge that awaits on his accession to the arena circuit.

★★★☆☆

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