This one is for the champions!
During the performance, Lil Nas X, 22, and Harlow, 23, riffed on the prison theme from their music video, performing before a backdrop that read “Montero State Prison.”
Lil Nas X kicked off the song with a full drumline, before shedding a marching band outfit for hot-pink pants and no shirt. Harlow eventually joined him in an all-black get-up to sing his verse on the track.
“@LilNasXdelivered a powerful performance at the#VMAsand shined a spotlight on the stigma that fuels HIV, especially across the South. Mardrequs Harris from@SouthernAIDSCowore the number 433,816 in red, representing the number of people living with HIV in the U.S. South,” the organization tweeted.
The performance was Harlow’s first at the VMAs and Lil Nas X’s second, who last brought his single “Panini” to the stage in 2019.
Lil Nas X’s appearance at the show comes just five days ahead of the release of his debut studio albumMontero, which hetold PEOPLE earlier this monthwas largely created over the past year in lockdown and changed him in “so many ways.”
Lil Nas X said he also learned through the creation of this album “to have full faith in myself.”
“The only person that really has to believe in me is myself,” he said. “It’s been a lot of self-affirmations this year that I probably would not have been able to do two years ago.”
“You’re getting a lot of stories about me,” he said. “You’re getting a lot of stories about my past and where I want to be in my love life. But they’re also a bop. I feel like I finally found a great balance between being as real as possible within my music and making a hit song.”
Lil Nas X.Jamie McCarthy/Getty
“I hope every single corner of the globe is reached with this album,” he said, before declaring: “It’s going to happen!”
source: people.com
