But in conservative media, ever-eager to talk about something besides the pandemic and Matt Gaetz, it was like touching a match to dry leaves. (Unsurprisingly, Nike swiftly sued to prevent their release.) Among rap fans, and especially Nas “stans,” as artists’ die-hard, cult-like supporters are called, it made a decent-size splash, its outre visuals and loopy premise generating the expected hype for the artist’s forthcoming full-length debut. The video pushes sacrilegious buttons by depicting the aforementioned sexual encounter with Satan, which, if it sounds a little old-fashioned as a cultural provocation, was followed by the announcement of a bootlegged, custom line of Nikes that included real human blood.
Far more interesting than the song is its video, specifically how through it Nas used one of America’s most reliable engines for cultural outrage to his advantage: the conservative media ecosystem. Musically, it’s pretty much par for the course with today’s top singles - short, repetitive, vaguely moody.
His new song, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” debuted this week atop the Billboard Hot 100 its lurid, baroque video has already reached more than 110 million views on YouTube, and as of this writing the song has nearly 105 million streams on Spotify.
