Lil Nas X, is an American rapper/singer/songwriter from Atlanta. He is best known for his recent country rap single “Old Town Road”, which went viral. “Old Town Road” peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Country Chart and was controversially removed from the Country Songs section after debuting at number 19. Billboard decided that “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X did not merit inclusion on Billboard’s country charts. While “Old Town Road” references country music, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.
Lil Nas X was actually an internet personality prior to the release of “Old Town Road.” He gained popularity through his “NasMaraj” account on twitter, Lil Nas X was known for his viral tweets and his fan page about Nicki Minaj. Through these accounts, Lil Nas X had accumulated a large following and, with encouragement from his followers, began making music. He uploaded songs to soundcloud in 2018 and in early 2019 the song Öld Town Road” went viral due to the “Yeehaw Challenge” meme on the social media app called TikTok.
Since the song was taken off Billboard’s charts, Billy Ray Cyrus has since supported Lil Nas X by featuring in a remix of the song in April 2019. It has been announced also that LiL Nas X had broken Drake’s record for the most US streams in one week. “Old Town Road” achieved 143 million streams, surpassing Drakes “In my feelings,” which achieved 116.2 million streams in one week in July 2018.
Personally, I don’t mind this song, it is terribly catchy. Found myself waking up in the morning with it in my head for a couple of days, to the point where I was actually pissing off my wife with it. Is it rap or country? It has elements of both. I worry that the reason that Billboard took it down is because he is african american, were they worried about some kind of backlash from the predominately white, country folk? Hopefully I am wrong.
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