New town road

 

For those who didn’t know by now, Lil Nas X — named after the great Nas who the young artist is rightfully a fan of — stands as a now 21-year old rapper, singer and songwriter hailing all the way from small town Georgia. And, in those 21 short years, he’s already managed to not only conquer the top of the US charts, but to do so in a way unparalleled since the Billboard Hot 100 was created back in 1958 — by spending 19 consecutive weeks at #1… Interestingly, though, that very same record-breaking song first got taken down from the Billboard Country charts. What gives?

Indeed, the song that propelled Lil Nas X to the firmament of American music, “Old town road”, is a bit of a unique musical mix, blending in together elements of hip-hop and country, or country trap if you wanna be even more specific: that would refer to a Sounthern hip-hop sub-genre mixed in with, well, country music. This is not the first song of its kind — country rap and country trap have been going on for decades — but it is by far its biggest hit ever — obviously — and it happened to be sung by an African-American performer…

While this may not sound obvious in retrospect, the first country rap/trap hits were largely released by white performers. Colt Ford was the first artist to top both the Billboard country and rap charts. Kid Rock, another country rap pallbearer, is deceptively white, if you take into account the fact that the artist has repeatedly come out in favor of Donald Trump. In recent years, however, more and more African-American performers started embracing the sub-genre, slowly shifting its core dynamics towards the hip-hop community. But it wasn’t until Lil Nas X’s smash hit that the revolution became entirely obvious. What is more, the second and most popular version of the track features Billy Ray Cyrus, a bona fide country music star, to completely muddy the musical waters between country and rap…

And so, quite logically, when the new and improved version of “Old town road” got released back in March 2019, it was featured in both Billboard’s country and hip-hop charts. Then, in an uncharacteristic move, the company discreetly took down the song from the country chart, citing the fact that it apparently did not showcase enough elements that would associate it with the country genre. The rest is history, and no one ultimately cared about this; but, in these fraught times when racial bias and systemic racism are being specifically singled out, it remains an interesting notion that, only last year, such a seemingly harmless yet rather telling incident occurred.

Whether or not “Old town road” takes more from country or rap is irrelevant at this point: music is an ever evolving art form, and genres are merely temporary pointers to help people navigate through its sheer complexity. The hope is that, in a few short years, when Lil Nas X reaches 25, such a controversy would be deemed societally unthinkable. In other words, go vote.