Wondering what the deal is with "Old Town Road"?
The country-rap song has taken the airwaves - and TikTok - by storm.
But where did viral sensation come from?
And what's the deal with Lil Nas X, the artist behind it?
Here's how country music reacted to "Old Town Road."
"Let's do it, it's my time, let's make it happen, and now I'm here with one of the biggest
songs in the world."
Meet Lil Nas X
The artist behind "Old Town Road" is known as Lil Nas X.
As Time reported, the man behind the name is Montero Lamar Hill of Atlanta, Georgia.
In 2018, Hill ignored the protests of his parents and dropped out of college at 19 to
see if he could carve out a career in music.
"I literally had, you know, my dad paying my phone bill, and a Twitter account.
So it's like I gotta make something shake."
However, according to New York Magazine, country trap stardom was not Hill's first rodeo, as
he is an extremely savvy online influencer who was a notorious internet presence even
before he made it big with "Old Town Road."
"A lot of people like to say you know it's like a kid accidentally got it, like no, this
is no accident, I've been pushing this hard."
The singer-rapper's first foray to web fame was on Twitter, where he operated as a popular
engagement bait account that was nominally about Nicki Minaj fandom.
The account was suspended for spamming and artificially inflating its stats in March
2018, but based on the current phase of his career, Hill clearly still knows how to work
the online crowd.
Not enough country
When the genre-busting "Old Town Road" debuted at Number 19 on the Billboard Hot Country
Songs chart, and also placed on the genre-blind Hot 100, it was easy to predict that the song
would ruffle a few feathers.
"It got popular so fast that it didn't have like an official release, so radio djs were
ripping the song from YouTube to play on the airwaves."
Some of those ruffled feathers belonged to Billboard itself.
Rolling Stone reports that the chart keepers stealthily removed "Old Town Road" from the
Hot Country Songs list soon after it first charted, and they told Lil Nas X's label,
Columbia Records, that the song's inclusion was a mistake in the first place.
Initially, Billboard tried to keep the removal low-key, but Rolling Stone managed to get
a statement that read:
"When determining genres, a few factors are examined, but first and foremost is musical
composition.
While 'Old Town Road' incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not
embrace enough elements of today's country music to chart in its current version."
"After listening to other songs that's actually on that chart, it's like wait a minute, something's
not right."
Billboard later clarified its position by saying the specific grounds for the song's
country chart disqualification were its trap beat, lack of country airplay, categorization
issues and, quote, "no involvement by Sony Music Nashville."
Shaking up the genre
Determining a genre for something as decidedly genre-bending as "Old Town Road" is difficult
at the best of times.
Even Billboard, which specifically dropped the song from its Hot Country Songs chart,
openly refers to it as a quote, "viral country trap hit."
"I just knew it was gonna be something that catches ears basically."
Rolling Stone suggests that the closest possible label to "Old Town Road" is probably "contemporary
country," but points out that the rigid genres Billboard still uses are more than a little
outdated, and that artists have combined hip-hop with country long before Lil Nas X.
For instance, Jason Aldean's rap-country song "Dirt Road Anthem" had no problem making it
to the top of the Hot Country Songs list in 2011.
They also note that while Nashville seems to consider "Old Town Road" as a pretty clear
gimmick, it's far from the first one they've ever encountered.
"I just go out there, do my thing, it's all good."
In 2018, a yodeling 11-year-old named Mason Ramsey was propelled to country charts by
a very similar viral sensation.
Breaking those records
"We're talking about a rapper essentially, but he is a marketing genius."
To put the massive success of "Old Town Road" in context, consider this: In April 2019,
the song was streamed more than 143 million times in a single week.
Apart from making the track a runaway success, this absurd figure also broke a pretty significant
record that was formerly held by none other than Drake.
CNN reports that the Canadian rapper had held the record for most streams per week with
his 2018 hit track "In My Feelings."
But the 116.2 million streams for that song paled in comparison to "Old Town Road," which
crushed it by almost 27 million streams.
Pitchfork noted that the version of "Old Town Road" that broke the record was specifically
the Billy Ray Cyrus remix which, in a way, was also a record: It gave Cyrus the first
Number 1 hit single of his career.
Just another play to go viral
Lil Nas X fully admits that he aimed for "Old Town Road" to go viral, and that it wasn't
his first try.
"I started as a meme page, like I'm still posting memes and stuff."
He says his previous attempts included Facebook comedy videos, Instagram influencing and,
eventually, Twitter.
For him, the third time was the charm.
He told Rolling Stone,
"That is where I really was a master.
That was the first place where I could go viral."
"I was pushing my music through the internet like full time."
Eventually, he decided to jump into music, but the banjo-filled song-rap of "Old Town
Road" didn't immediately come to him.
First he tried to take a more typical musical road that resulted in, quote, "middle-of-the-road
Soundcloud rap."
Even when Lil Nas X ultimately landed on his now-famous country trap tune, it was far from
an overnight sensation.
"I pushed the song with the Red Dead Redemption gameplay because I knew I wasn't gonna be
able to afford an actual music video."
As Stereogum describes, the artist embarked on a tireless social media promotion cycle
to turn his song into a meme, and ultimately lucked out on the video app, TikTok.
Enter Billy Ray Cyrus
When most people were still trying to figure out what to make of "Old Town Road," country
legend Billy Ray Cyrus had already made up his mind.
As NBC News reports, Cyrus says he decided from the beginning that the song ticked every
box of a good country tune.
He later tweeted:
"It was so obvious to me after hearing the song just one time.
It's honest, humble, and has an infectious hook, and a banjo.
What the hell more do ya need?"
"I actually stood up out of my chair.
I stood up and go God I love that, that dude is original."
However, Cyrus didn't just walk into the studio one day and offer Lil Nas X a hand.
X says he had been trying to reach the country singer for a while during the promotion stage
of "Old Town Road" in hopes that Cyrus might retweet the song, but he wasn't able to make
the connection.
When the rapper signed with Columbia Records, he asked them to put him in touch with Cyrus,
and to his delight, the country musician was well aware of the Billboard situation of "Old
Town Road" and was happy to collaborate.
The two hit the studio and hit it off, and the resulting remix of "Old Town Road" is
now even more popular than the original.
Topping the charts
Much has been made about Billboard dropping "Old Town Road" from its Hot Country Songs
chart, but they didn't exactly scrub the song from their rolls.
On April 8, 2019, "Old Town Road" was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as the
Streaming Songs chart, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and Hot Rap Songs chart.
"I consider myself a rapper, I consider myself a country singer, I consider myself an artist
overall."
The Billy Ray Cyrus version of the song continued to dominate the Hot 100 for several weeks,
and as of May 2019, may do so for a while yet.
The song was so unstoppable that it even made it back on the country charts, at least in
a fashion.
As Taste of Country notes, "Old Town Road" debuted at No. 53 on the Country Airplay chart
on the week of April 13, mere weeks after Billboard deemed it quote, "not country."
Mixed reviews
"This is my life song at this point."
Regardless of where you personally rank "Old Town Road," plenty of famous folks have stepped
forward to offer their two cents about it.
In April 2019, a Billboard interviewer got country stars Brothers Osborne to renounce
the song, though their criticism mostly appears to concern their feeling that Lil Nas X hasn't
paid his rightful dues in the industry.
"Let's turn the focus away from that…don't create controversy and expect that to give
you a hall pass.
We need great songs."
On the hip-hop side of things, the Source reports that Harlem rapper Dave East has dissed
"Old Town Road," to the utter indifference of Lil Nas X.
"I have the number one song in the country, I do not give a f--- about what Dave East
is saying."
On the other hand, Rolling Stone notes that more open-minded country dudes such as Keith
Urban clearly don't mind the song.
Urban covered it, and obviously Billy Ray Cyrus, who featured on the remix, is on board.
Other celebs with no horse in this particular race - like Justin Bieber, Mark Ruffalo and
Will Smith have also come out in support of the track.
History repeating?
"A lot of country hip hop mixes either has too much of one or too much of the other…but
I feel like I was actually able to actually do that."
As Paper points out, it says something about country music that Lil Nas X was bluntly removed
from the country charts, but when the Billy Ray Cyrus' remix of "Old Town Road" reached
No. 1, a sign congratulating only Cyrus was erected on Music Row in Nashville.
Though this was probably the doings of Cyrus' label or publisher - and he added a sign of
his own - fans have to wonder; was the Billboard rejection just a musical matter, or is there
an underlying racial element?
"Do you think there's a racial element to Old Town Road being removed from the country
chart?"
"If we allow this, who knows."
According to NBC News, the "Old Town Road" incident is forcing country music - and Billboard
- to face its murky past.
Influential black country artists like Arthur Alexander and O.B.
McClinton have historically never charted very well and have struggled to get airplay
on country radio.
Meanwhile, Billboard has been defining what should and shouldn't be "country" since the
days it was still called quote, "hillbilly music" and featured artists with a history
of performing in blackface.
With "Old Town Road," Lil Nas X challenged the industry to review its rotten roots and,
hopefully, work toward a more inclusive future.
The producer behind the track
Lil Nas X may seem like he came out of nowhere, but he was putting in tons of effort to make
his track a viral hit.
On the other hand, the man behind the song's underlying beat didn't see it coming, in the
least.
"Well, I'm from the Netherlands.
I live in a small town outside of Amsterdam.
This is where I make my beats."
According to Billboard, YoungKio is a 19-year-old Dutch producer and online provider of so-called
"type beats" - background tracks reminiscent of a specific rapper's sound.
Lil Nas X bought the beat and because the purchase doesn't require the producer to be
credited YoungKio had no idea he had become part of the country trap revolution until
it started gaining traction.
The producer contacted Lil Nas X on Instagram, offered to help with promotion, and asked
if his name could be added to the song's credits as a producer.
The rapper agreed, and these days, YoungKio's inbox is full of beat requests from artists
big and small, including Lil Pump and Rico Nasty.
He's also planning to continue his collaboration with Lil Nas.
Still, the producer probably doesn't need to work too hard to recreate his most famous
beat.
YoungKio has admitted that the "Old Town Road" beat is a sample from a Nine Inch Nails song
that he sped up to give it a trap vibe.
"I'm definitely gonna milk the f--- out of Old Town Road."
The making of a name
Lil Nas X might sound like a supergroup consisting of Lil Wayne, Nas, and DMX, but Hill actually
took the name from the same place that made him a star: the internet.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, he says he first used "Nas" as his internet alias,
and decided to add "Lil" because he found it funny that so many rappers use that particular
prefix.
As he built his online fanbase, he was pretty much stuck with the name, but couldn't resist
tinkering with it one last time when he added the X - which he says is a representation
of the ten years he estimates it will take before he hits legendary status.
"So you wanna be a legend in 10 years."
"Huge.
Like something I can't even imagine right now."
Despite the fact that his stage name comes from relatively innocent origins, Hill still
fully recognizes its debt to the rap great Nas, whom he says he considers a legend.
In fact, XXL reports that Hill has considered changing his artist name because he doesn't
want to disrespect Nas.
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