The story of Lil Nas X’s breakthrough hit, “Old Town Road,” is one fraught with more drama than the average SoundCloud rap song, and its story reveals some of the potentially nastier inner workings of the Billboard charts.
With the release of a remix of the song featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, I think it’s a good time to examine the controversy that’s leading to the young rapper becoming a household name.
And, yes, I’ll acknowledge that this space is typically reserved for album reviews, but I’ve been so fascinated by this song that I can’t focus on anything else.
To sum up the story as quickly as possible: Lil Nas X is a 20-year-old rapper from Atlanta who doesn’t seem concerned about naming himself in a way that makes Google searches for him easy. Born Montero Hill, the rapper, who originally grew a following as a Twitter personality, released the country rap song “Old Town Road” in early December last year, and it began to climb up the charts after becoming a meme on the app TikTok.
“Charts” is the operative word there. At time of writing, “Old Town Road” is sitting at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song debuted on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in late March at number 19, before Billboard gave it the ax.
“Upon further review, it was determined that ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X does not currently merit inclusion on Billboard’s country charts,” Billboard told Rolling Stone. “When determining genres, a few factors are examined, but first and foremost is a 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.”
Personally, I’m not buying this.
To my ears, “Old Town Road” is just as country as it is rap. It’s not a rap song with country influences, or a country song with rap influences. It’s just … both.
This is especially true after the inclusion of Billy Ray Cyrus on the track, who essentially lent his talents to the track in order to justify its country-ness. And while I think Cyrus added a lot to the track — his gravelly vocals on both the intro chorus and his verse just sound so good — I truly think this was a country song before Cyrus touched it.
Sure, the instrumentals are of the typical trap style, with booming bass and rattling high-hats. But I think that’s where the hip-hop influences ultimately end. The vocal performances, even those by Lil Nas X, are far closer to the sort you would hear in a country song than a rap one. If it weren’t for the booming bass, I don’t think there would be any question of if this were a country song.
Which brings us to the question of why this song was stripped from the country charts. I’ve seen some people on the internet claim it’s because “Old Town Road” is supposed to be a parody of country songs. If that’s the case, it’s not a particularly good parody. There doesn’t seem to be any joke to it. All of the lyrics feel fairly earnest.
So if it’s not a parody, what else could the issue be? Hearing some of the pop crossover songs that come from country radio shows that Nashville has been borrowing from hip-hop for some time now. But there was no effort to pull Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise” off the charts back in 2012.
Which leads to the conclusion that the only reason for “Old Town Road” to be pulled off the country charts is fear. Either Billboard is afraid of musical experimentation that doesn’t fit into easy categorization, or they’re afraid of artists that don’t fit — Lil Nas X, a young black man, looks pretty different from every other artist topping the country charts right now.
I hope it’s not the latter, and I’m willing to give Billboard the benefit of the doubt on it. I think the bigger issue here is a problem with musical experimentation. Billboard doesn’t seem to want to allow music that blends genres to succeed.
But regardless of what Billboard thinks, “Old Town Road” is an incredibly catchy song, with amazing vocal performances from both Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus. And with the promise of a Young Thug remix to come this week, this song is guaranteed to become even more ubiquitous, no matter the charts it appears on.
