Nil Nas X has been releasing a steady stream of new songs and accompanying videos over the last week. His latest video though has really triggered our memoires of an 80’s classic.
Alongside the official video to his new song HotBox, which sees him hanging out in a pool with a good-looking dude, dancing up on some giant speakers, and working out in a boxing ring, he’s also shared a second clip for the song.
In the pink tinged ‘performance video’ Nil Nas X is joined by three friends and they dance around a pink convertible.
After watching the clip, we suddenly had flashbacks to 1986 and a classic video of the MTV era.
Rather than a pink themed world, we recalled a blue heavy video that also featured a pop star, a convertible and three sassy friends.
Surely it’s no coincidence that Lil Nas X’s video has so many elements from Madonna’s True Blue!
Compare the two.
True Blue was the title track and third single from Madonna’s mega selling album back at the beginning of her career. The song is a homage to girl groups of the 1960’s like The Shirelles and The Dixie Cups.
Madonna’s clip was directed by James Foley who she’d previously worked with for her previous two singles Live to Tell and Papa Don’t Preach. Among the friends in the clip is actor and close friend Debbie Mazar, and model Erika Belle.
Belle also appears in Madonna’s videos for Everybody, Papa Don’t Preach, Lucky Star, and Holiday and also designed many of the outfits the singer wore early in her career.
Mazar had previously done the makeup for the Everybody video and also appears in the clips for Papa Don’t Preach, Deeper and Deeper, and Music.
It’s not the first time there’s been some Madonna imagery in Lil Nas X’s work. He’s previously shared that his documentary Long Live Montero took some inspiration from Madonna’s ground-breaking 1991 film Truth or Dare: In Bed with Madonna.
His video for That’s What I Want also sees him donning a white wedding dress and rocking out, which is very reminiscent of Madonna’s Like a Virgin look.
