Lil Nas X Becomes First Openly Gay Black Man to Win at the CMAs

Lil Nas X keeps making history!

Most recently, he became the very first openly gay black artist to win at the Country Music Awards. He and Billy Ray Cyrus took home the award for Musical Event of the Year with their remix of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.”

While he's not the first openly gay person to win a CMA (both Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark won awards back in 2014), he is the first openly gay black man to win -- or even be nominated.

The persistently groundbreaking hip hop/country music star came out at the very end of Pride month earlier this year with the most casual tweet ever.

And while both country and hip hop tend to be heteronormative genres, his being public about being gay doesn’t seem to have slowed him down at all so far. Since the end of June, Lil Nas has broken Mariah Carey’s record for longest running #1 song, won at the VMAs, appeared on the cover of TIME, and nabbed this newly iconic CMA.

“I’m happy to go to any award show,” Lil Nas said after the win. “Just to be here at this point in my life…not knowing where I was going to go to next last year…it’s amazing, every time I’m invited anywhere.”

Anyone who’s paid any attention to Lil Nas knows "Old Town Road" took a damn minute to be accepted by country music folks. In fact, it basically took Billy Ray Cyrus jumping in on the remix to get it qualified as a country song, despite um, obviously be a country song, which the two poke fun at in the official video.

Though critics may have taken some convincing, Lil Nas has been successful with the public from the start. And his slew of wins proves that in spades.

Progress may be slow as hell, but it’s sure nice when it finally happens!