After launching into his Dreamboy era last week with the project’s debut single “LIGHT AGAIN!,” Lil Nas X follows up the bouncy club-ready bop with his synthy slowed-down introspective second single, “need dat boy.”
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While “LIGHT AGAIN!” arrived with a music video that fully brought the song’s chaotic party vibes to life. Nas’ follow-up track, “need dat boy,” lyrically gives off confessional voicemail vibes, built around a wistful piano melody, with sparks of thunderous bass.
“I been lookin' for a muse, need a new persona / Put your picture on the wall, you my new Madonna / Sorry darling I been down for a couple summers / Falling back in the crowd smokin’ marijuana,” Nas sings on the first verse. Then “I been angsty / I been hurtin’ / I been tryin’ / S*** ain’t workin’ / Yeah I dream big / Yet I descend / These days I don’t know what I believe in,” on the pre-chorus.
“Dreamboy isn’t just an album,” the rapper explained in a now-deleted post on X. “It’s me coping with the loss of what once was and fighting for a new world. im so excited to bring you on the journey.” Nas elaborated on those thoughts and feelings in the album’s teaser trailer. In it, Lil Nas X is seen adrift at sea on a wooden raft when Dreamboy, a flying, helmet-wearing figure descends from the clouds to “save” the rapper from himself. “It’s time to remember who you are,” Dreamboy tells Lil Nas before surrounding him with a series of memories.
Lil Nas also drops melodic bars about his lack of supporters, in the second verse of his latest track. But don’t get it twisted, you won’t catch him dwelling on what the haters have to say.
“Y’all do not support nobody / Show up for y’all / But y’all don’t show up for Lil Nazy,” he sings. “Look how I open doors and everybody run in /A lot of y’all are just my peers / Y’all ain’t my friends / A lot of y’all say y’all love me/Y’all just pretend/A lot of y’all watch me drown in that deep end”
Picking up the pace with an interpolation of Trina’s 2000 single “Pull Over”on the post-chorus, Lil Nas brings the party he started on “LIGHT AGAIN!” full circle. And name-drops the upcoming album on the Bridge, noting “You in dream world and you listening to Dreamboy,” before closing out the track.
Check out Lil Nas X’s new singles “LIGHT AGAIN!” and “need dat boy” below.