Music fans are divided once again by the music genius that is Lil Nas X, as he drops a masterful new single Montero (Call Me by Your Name) - the video for which is an effusion of gay wonder.

Lil Nas X at the 2020 Grammys / Photo credit: Admedia/Zuma Press/PA ImagesLil Nas X at the 2020 Grammys / Photo credit: Admedia/Zuma Press/PA Images

While he's not the first openly gay hip hop star - the likes of Frank Ocean and Tyler the Creator, Mykki Blanco, Big Freedia, Le1f and Cakes da Killa being some of the frontrunners in the transformation of hip hop into an LGBT-friendly genre - his chart prominence gives him significant responsibility for being a positive icon in the community.

Montero (Call Me by Your Name) is probably the gayest thing he's released thus far. It references his real name, as well as the title of an iconic 2007 novel by André Aciman, famously translated to the big screen with a movie starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet - itself about the romantic relationship between two young men.

As for the video, amid the stunning graphics we've got Lil Nas X giving the devil a lap dance in thigh high patent leather boots  and we are LIVING for it. The lyrics are also full of barely veiled gay references such as, "I'm not phased, only here to sin / If Eve ain't in your garden, you know that you can". 

It feels like Nas is coming into himself more and more and, two years after the release of the chart-smashing Old Town Road, he's not reigning in any of his queer identity. As he explained in a post on Twitter, in a letter to his younger self, it's important for him to lead to the way for other queer youngsters.

"Dear 14-year-old Montero", he wrote. "I wrote a song with our name in it. It's about a guy I met last summer. I know we promised to never come out publicly, I know we promised to never be 'that' type of gay person, I know we promised to die with the secret, but this will open doors for many other queer people to simply exist.

"You see this is very scary for me, people will be angry, they will say I'm pushing an agenda", he continued. "But the truth is, I am. The agenda to make people stay the f*ck out of other people's lives and stop dictating who they should be. Sending you love from the future."

Indeed, there has been a homophobic backlash from those who believe that hip hop should be LGBT-free, or at least that Lil Nas X is going too far in donning fake nails and grinding dudes in his videos. But that's their problem.