From Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé to BTS Monuments: Beyond the Star, the past year was jam-packed with celebrity documentaries that gave fans an all-access pass to their favorite musical performers. And tonight, we get a closer look at one of music's biggest names, hip-hop superstar Lil Nas X, through the new documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero.
Having premiered at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero will make its TV debut on HBO on Saturday, January 27 at 8pm Eastern, and will be available to stream with a Max subscription. Cord-cutters can also tune into HBO as a premium channel by adding it to one of your existing livestreaming TV apps, including Hulu with Live TV, DirecTV Stream and YouTube TV.
Directed by Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel, the doc "captures the creative dynamo and mesmerizing star power of Lil Nas X, the groundbreaking, Grammy award-winning rapper, singer, and songwriter, as he prepares for and embarks on his first-ever headlining U.S. tour," per a press release. Shot over the course of 60 days on the provocative performer's 2022-23 Long Live Montero tour, the verité-style film "follows the genre-breaking artist on a personal journey of self-investigation and discovery as he creates, rehearses, and performs nightly in front of his legions of devoted fans."
Mirroring the stage show, the nearly two-hour long movie is divided into three acts—"Rebirth", "Transformation" and "Becoming"—and sees the "Old Town Road" singer navigating "the pressures of his meteoric rise to stardom, his desire to inspire his fans and accept the naysayers, and his place within the pantheon of Black, queer icons."
The debut of the documentary this weekend also coincides with the musician's latest single, the track “Where Do We Go Now,” which dropped on Friday, January 26. The song can be heard in the credits sequence of the new doc.
The 24-year-old Georgia-born rapper shot to fame with the release of his country-rap single "Old Town Road"—which, after 19 weeks atop the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, became the longest-running number-one song in the chart's history—as well as tunes like "Panini," "Rodeo" and "Montero (Call Me by Your Name)", the latter of which received Grammy nominations for Song of the Year and Record of the Year in 2022.
Watch the trailer for Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero below.
