Lil Nas X completes week of single drops with ‘Right There!’ and ‘Hotbox’

In what has been a peculiar release strategy, Lil Nas X has reached the climax of his week of dropping new tracks daily with the release of his new single ‘Hotbox’.

The song is a laid back summer anthem that sounds curiously like ‘Frontin’ by Pharrell Williams, though it doesn’t appear to officially sample the song as Williams does not appear on the credits. In the first verse he raps: “Fuck a n***a baby, damn he ain’t that fun, I mean do he got a song with Daft Punk?,” perhaps another nod to the ‘Get Lucky’ singer?

The song’s music video elevates the Barbie-inspired aesthetic of the week’s previous buzz tracks, positioning Lil Nas surrounded by hunks in a highly-stylised landscape that feels reminiscent of Charli xcx‘s ‘Boys’ video.

The single was preceded by one more track, ‘Right There!’, an ode to hedonism which hears the rapper extol the virtues of everything from Hennessy and Casamigos to ecstacy and Percoset.

In the paired back video, Lil Nas appears front and centre, spitting bars from beneath an enviable pink fluffy Hat & Spicy original, a favourite of the likes of Bimini and Julia Fox.

“Look at the charts, who bigger than him? I take the juice and I mix it with gin, I take your bitch and I mix it with him,” Lil Nas brags over a trap beat.

‘Right There!’ and ‘Hotbox’ follow the release of ‘Swish’, ‘Dreamboy’ and ‘Big Dummy’ earlier this week. All five songs are expected to appear on the artist’s forthcoming sophomore album, also thought to be called Dreamboy.

This slew of singles come after last year’s so-called comeback single ‘J. Christ’ stalled on the charts and its religious video failed to set tongues wagging to quite the same effect as the rapper’s previous number one smash hit ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name).

The performer faced issues again in November 2024, after the music producer Sega Bodega suggested the artwork for Dreamboy was directly copying the artwork for Bodega’s 2021 single ‘Angel On My Shoulder’.