Eliot Talbot and Lil Nas X | Hotbox / 2025

in the pink

by Douglas Messerli

 

Eliot Talbot (director), Lil Nas X (singer/performer) Hotbox / 2025 [4 minutes]

 

On March 10, 2025 Lil Nas X—after a very long silence that dates back to the negative reaction, primarily by the Christian community to J. Christ of January 2024—release a series of new songs beginning with “Dreamboy” (Monday), “Big Dummy!” (Tuesday), “Swish” (Wednesday), and “Right There” (Thursday)—all in preparation for his video on Friday, Hotbox, all of which will eventually be released, perhaps later this year, as a new album Dreamboy.

    Visually, with the performer dressed primarily in pink, with pink-colored accoutrements (a car, the gigantic hotbox, pool furniture, and even his megaphone) is quite wonderful, but the lyrics and sentiment of this song are frankly rather banal, all centered in the pun of the hotbox and his need to get it on.

Hit me with your lovin'

Boy, I know you wanna

Pick me up and love me

I'll be waitin' on ya

 

Hit me with your lovin'

Boy, I know you wanna

Pick me up and - (ooh) me

I'll be waitin' on ya

 

    The performer apparently has the dreamy night, sex, drink, and drugs all planned out:

 

Yeah, 11:30, we gon' pull up in a

B-b-b-b-black Benz, takin' all the niggas

We gon' pop a couple poppers, pop a couple jiggas

While they p-p-p-p-poppin' paparazzi pictures

I got my bitches in the back, and my bros in the front leadin'

He keep lookin' at me, I'ma make that boy a whole eater

I'ma fuck his friend too, baby, I'm a whole cheater

We can go to France, Eiffel Tower

 

Y'all both need a real ass one (ass one)

More dick, more coin than your last one (last one)

Fuck that nigga, baby, damn, he ain't that fun

I mean, do he got a song with Daft Punk?

 

I mean, do he hit the club and his song come on?

Do he rock a weave 30 inches long?

Hmm, do he got a sold-out tour?

Do that nigga know Anna Wintour?*

 

     After another chorus of his presuming that we want it, he switches to the past tense, suggesting what did happen rather than one he had planned:

 

He said let's hit the back, hit the back, hit the backroom

You be the carpet, I be the vacuum

We can get it in, we can get it on

Tonight I'm on a Xan', tonight I'm in the zone

 

The bass jumpin', the club pumpin', it's hot

These hos comin' in the club 'cause they want ya

"I won't say I gotta feel for you, Lil Nas

Uh, but I gotta feel for you, Lil Nas

 

I'll pay the whole bill for you, Lil Nas

I'll do my lil' jig for you, Lil Nas"

Then he whispered in my ear like, "On God

You know I got somethin' big for you, Lil Nas"

      At that point the song shifts to the hotbox itself, even larger than we might have imagined it, as Lil Nas encourages his audience it put some ass into their dance, before moving back to the chorus with its sexy presumptions. And of course, given the sure struts of Lil Nas, we do, in fact, “want it.”

    I just wanted more; but this will do for now. Although, given his recent run-in with the law, we may have to wait.

 

*The influential French electronic music duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were a popular group of the late 1990s. On February 22, 2021 the group disbanded.

**For those not in the know, Anna Wintour, awarded the honorific title of British Dame, was the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine from 1988-2025.

 

Los Angeles, October 11, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (October 2025).