The rapper, singer, and meme mastermind took over the world in 2019 with his debut single “Old Town Road,” the roguish country-rap juggernaut that spent a record-breaking 19 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and sparked months of conversation about what constituted “country music”—and, for that matter, what genre meant at all. But as quickly as the young Atlanta native had become the country’s foremost queer, Black pop-rap-country star, the spotlight shifted, and by the release of his 2021 debut album, Montero, Lil Nas X’s moment seemed in danger of having already passed. For most of 2024, Lil Nas teased the release of his sophomore album, DREAMBOY, though early singles like the pointedly provocative “J CHRIST” landed without much of a splash. On Days Before Dreamboy, a surprise-release EP in anticipation of the album, the mood oscillates wildly from full-on slay mode to anxious angst. He’s got boasts for days on “LIGHT AGAIN!” (co-produced by Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter), but later wallows in self-doubt on emo-rap ballad “need dat boy.” Then the beat erupts into a dreamy club banger as the self-proclaimed controversy king decides: “Man, fuck this pity party/When I’m back up, I’m shooting shots at everybody!” Apparently that includes middle-schoolers: On “LEAN ON MY BODY,” he recounts a story about his nephew who beat up a classmate for talking shit about his uncle. “Now listen, I ain’t saying I condone that shit/Fuck it, yeah, I said it—I condone that shit!”