Between giving Lucifer a hell-throned lapdance and selling Satan-centered shoes, Lil Nas X has been kicking up dust over the last few days. His “MONTERO (Call My By Your Name)” music video has created a firestorm as people have lauded for the “canceling” of the young star. Lil Nas X has stated that he’s been preparing for the release of his “MONTERO” single for the better parts of nine months, suggesting that he was fully prepared for the backlash. He has been checking people left and right as they disagree with him, but FKA Twig’s video director has a bone to pick with the singer regarding his visual looking eerily similar to the star’s music video for “Cellophane.”
Out Magazine reports that director Andrew Thomas Huang had a few comments about Lil Nas X’s latest visual. “There’s no winning when this happens,” Huang reportedly wrote on his Instagram Stories. “Been copied before but this feels different… Consider the power you wield and the artists you harm when you capitalize on our blood, sweat, tears, and emotional labor.”
In his interview Time, the rapper mentioned Twig’s pole work in her “Cellophane” video, and Huang later told the publication that this goes far beyond Lil Nas X. “It put into perspective how small, indie artists like me and Twigs don’t really don’t make a lot of money, and our platform is limited because we’re trying hard to make challenging work.”
“When someone who is commercially successful makes work that lives so similarly next to ours and profits from it on such a massive scale, then I felt like I had to speak up.” Huang added, “I think Twigs and Lil Nas are both doing important work. The question is, who benefits from their work? The answer is record labels. The anger it stokes between artists just increases divisions between underrepresented artists. So I think there’s something larger and systemic here at work.”
This evening (March 30), Lil Nas X shared a post to social media where he honored Huang and Twigs for their previous work. “I was not aware that the visual would serve as a major inspiration for those who worked on the effects of my video,” he wrote in the caption. “I want to say thank u to twigs for calling me and informing me about the similarities between the two videos, as i was not aware they were so close.”
Check out a few tweets below along with FKA Twig’s music video for “Cellophane.”