Billboard Must Remove Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” From Country Chart
This story has been updated.
The debate about what is country music and what isn’t is an eternal one, and can turn nauseating and redundant very quickly in the way different factions fight back and forth about the definition and boundaries of the genre. That debate won’t be resolved here or anywhere else. But a 1:53-long viral “song” that is really nothing more than an internet meme entitled “Old Town Road” by rapper “Lil Nas X” has rekindled the debate anew, with critical implications behind it.
Lil Nas X, whose birth name is Montero Lamar Hill, is an Atlanta-based hip-hop artist who released “Old Town Road” in December. He’s not entirely new to the music scene. The trap artist and DJ released a 7-song EP in the summer of 2018 called Nasarati. But it’s “Old Town Road” that has put him on the national and international map, along with its accompanying video set randomly to scenes from the Wild West video game Red Dead Redemption 2 like your teenage son may do to one of his favorite songs.
“Old Town Road” is no more country than The Beastie Boys’ “High Plains Drifter.” Including Wild West signifiers or references to horses in no way qualifies a rap song with a trap beat as country. Furthermore, Lil Nas X is not professing to be a country artist. He’s not signed to a country label, and has no affiliation to the country industry whatsoever. Lil Nas X has no ties to the greater Nashville music campus in any capacity. There are no country artists guesting on the track like you had with Bebe Rexha’s collaboration with Florida Georgia Line’s “Meant To Be.” There appears to be absolutely no credible reason to include this song on a country chart aside from a bigoted stereotype bred from the fact that horses and cowboy hats are referenced in the lyrics.
Nonetheless, Lil Nas X and “Old Town Road” debuted at #19 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated March 16th, and also was labeled country by iTunes and other music providers in their metrics. This set an incredibly bad, and possibly historically significant precedent that could result in existential ramifications in the country genre, and make complaints about Sam Hunt, or even Bebe Rexha getting placed on country charts for pop songs pale in comparison.
These concerns are underscored further by how “Old Town Road” has gone viral. Partly fueling the phenomenon behind an otherwise pedestrian hip-hop/trap song is Instagram and other social media users creating their own memes and using the song in the background. Yes, people are making memes of this meme. Sometimes these memes are just fun, but some appear to be demeaning or lampoon cowboy and rural culture. Celebrity culture has also played a critical role in the explosion of “Old Town Road,” with Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line giving the song an endorsement on his Instagram account, and Lil Nas X’s affiliation with the Nicki Minaj “Barbz” Stan army playing an important role.
Here’s a cross section of “Old Town Road” lyrics:
Ridin’ on a tractor, Lean all in my bladder
Cheated on my baby, You can go and ask her
My life is a movie, Bull ridin’ and boobies
Cowboy hat from Gucci, Wrangler on my booty
The song is basically a 1:53 joke. But it’s pushing actual songs, country or otherwise, down the charts.
There is a silver lining to this story, however. In the latest chart update, Billboard appears to have switched Lil Nas X and “Old Town Road” to the Hot Rap Songs chart. The song does not appear at all on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated March 23rd, and instead appears on the Hot Rap Songs at #24 with a “New” tag slapped on it, meaning it’s a debut entry on the chart. iTunes has made a similar move with its chart in the last couple of days, switching the song to hip-hop after it had shown up as high as #2 in all of country music due to the mislabeling.
It’s good that the change has been made. However this situation raises a myriad of questions on how these charts are being administrated. How was “Old Town Road” labeled country by Billboard and iTunes in the first place? Was it due to the Instagram endorsement by Brian Kelly of Florida Georgia Line? And even though the genre switch has been made now, why haven’t the charts been corrected from the previous week to reflect the outright mislabeling of a song? Why has Billboard not offered a correction to the error? And what safeguards are being put in place to make sure a similar mistake doesn’t happen in the future?
At the present, whenever anyone pulls up the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart from March 16th, they will see “Old Town Road” sitting at #19. Switching the song from Hot Country Songs to Hot Rap Songs proves Billboard acknowledges an error was made. If the song had charted in both genres and the claim had been made it was relevant to both charts, that would be one thing. But this was a clear error in judgement that subsequently resulted in other entities in the music industry making the same labeling error with “Old Town Road.”
The debate on what is country and what isn’t will continue. But what shouldn’t continue or remain uncorrected is major mistakes by the music institutions we trust when there’s clear, unequivocal, and universal agreement upon what genre a song should be labeled. Furthermore, Billboard’s stodgy approach to classifying songs that doesn’t take into account public sentiment—which among other things led to a pop star in Bebe Rexha now holding the record for the longest-charting song in country music history with a song that first appeared only on pop metrics—needs to be replaced by a regime that allows the will of a genre’s fans and experts to weight into these critical decisions. This glaring, and yet-to-be fully corrected mistake with Lil Nas X and “Old Town Road” underscores this need.
March 23, 2019 @ 10:31 am
This confirms it, people, we live the Twilight Zone.
March 23, 2019 @ 10:40 am
Mainstream Country music was lost a LONG time ago. The only “hope” for traditional Country music is to nurture and support the independent artists who still write and play it. I applaud Trigger for fighting the good fight, but I gave up long ago. Honestly, when I see stories like this it reminds me how disconnected I am from Country radio. I honestly don’t think I could name one song on the mainstream Country chart.
It’s sort of the equivalent of living in a political silo, but living in a musical silo is significantly less destructive to American society…
March 25, 2019 @ 1:16 am
Just checked my calendar, and it’s not April 1st yet. What in the actual fuck did I just watch and hear?
March 23, 2019 @ 10:55 am
It’s kind of funny how as much polar opposites country music and hip-hop music are both genres are exactly similar when it comes to the complete deterioration and erosion of the artwork. Obviously this song is not country, but it’s not hip hop either. Just sad all the way around.
March 23, 2019 @ 11:04 am
Yes, the hip-hop world wants nothing to do with this song either, which may have been one of the reasons it got sifted to the country charts. It’s an anti-hit, with arguably just as many people listening to it ironically or accidentally than for pleasure. There should be safeguards by Billboard to keep all of these kinds of songs off the charts in the first place.
March 23, 2019 @ 11:13 am
But Billboard seems to love these viral type songs that’s the issue. One of the first signs of trouble was that stupid ‘Harlem Shake’ viral hit which was a multi week number one solely on user created videos which had no relevance to the song or it’s actual popularity. It’s like some warped experience where they take a viral video and make it’s existence their own viral event. There has been many more since.
I think what a lot of this is Billboard has never fully been able to incorporate streaming into any kind of accurate representative ranking system. And in the process they have devalued all their charts because people see stuff like this or some hip hop act debuting 25 songs in one week and realize these things are a joke.
April 5, 2019 @ 4:25 pm
i kind of diagree, when it comes to just braggin about the “goodol times” orwritng songs about personal struggles and tragedies, country music and rapmusic can go hand in hand
March 23, 2019 @ 11:05 am
And remember the Green River Ordinance kerfuffle from a few years ago.
Honestly, I think this is a case of Billboard having no real understanding of what these genres are. Most of the decision makers have zero connection to country music so how would they know anything about it.
Billboard was always the chart bible to me but the last decade they have totally lost their way.
March 23, 2019 @ 11:09 am
Yes, good reminder of the Green River Ordinance incident. So they’re not country, even though they self-identify as country, sound country, asked to be considered country by Billboard, actively disputed when they were not included in the country charts, but Lil Nas X gets labeled country even though nobody wanted it, and nobody agrees, including the artist. Absolutely ridiculous.
Here’s what we’re talking about for anyone curious:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/green-river-ordinance-excluded-from-billboard-country-charts-while-other-acts-go-unquestioned/
March 23, 2019 @ 11:36 am
What’s funny about Green River Ordinance is they weren’t a country band to begin with. Their early work is labeled rock or alternative and definitely has that late 2000s alternative rock style. Just a point of interest.
March 17, 2022 @ 10:21 am
So in other words, they decided to become country when alternative died (due to, IMHO, this act happening [which also led to this consequence happening]) that eventually killed alternative rock due to Clear Channel’s (and all of the other media conglomerates’) preference for pop music (also similar to what happened to Darius Rucker.)
March 23, 2019 @ 11:08 am
Well that was disconcerting.
March 23, 2019 @ 11:16 am
If he chooses to, Lil Nas X can stake the claim that he once hit number 19 on the Hot Country Chart.
That’s a boast that very few of the legitimate country artists spotlighted here will ever get to make. What a sham and a joke.
March 23, 2019 @ 11:24 am
What Billboard really needs to do is have some sort of independent ombudsman or something of the sort for these various genre charts. This person would have no connection to radio or label interests and also have a deep but not too rigid understanding of the genre. I’m not informed enough to select someone for rap or rock charts but those people obviously exist.
But for country someone like Grady Smith would be perfect.
March 23, 2019 @ 11:31 am
Everybody knows county is too white. This is how they fix that problem ????♂️
March 23, 2019 @ 11:38 am
Billboard doesn’t care, and it’s unclear at this point whether they’ll ever care. The sooner Billboard ceases to have any useful influence, the better.
The bigger question is whether country music can survive without country people.
I think it can, but only as a style. Whether anyone will be able to tell the difference between the genuine article and the digital copy is open to question. Gillian Welch isn’t from Appalachia, but she sounds like it. Zephaniah OHora makes songs and records that are so stone cold country-sounding they can be honestly mistaken for titles from the Golden Age. Can anyone here tell what kind of person is playing steel guitar licks anymore? Or any instrument?
All that said, there has to be a way for people to support country music made by country people. Tyler Childers is one, but there are others. SCM is one way. What Trig is doing is great. But the real saving, the saving that scales up, is not going to come from tweaking corrupt “country” radio and its industry. It’s going to have to come from some kind of change in values.
Rural experience has profound value. We’re getting some spring, finally. The birds are back. The crocuses and chervil are poking up. I hope as cities turn into even bigger chaotic corrupted crap-holes than they already are, sensible people will move back into smaller towns and rural areas. Then we may get country people making country music again. But it might take something bigger than their urban dissatisfaction to make that happen, and we should be careful what we wish for.
Right now, we mostly have “suburban music,” which is all about shape-shifting and illusion.
March 23, 2019 @ 11:55 am
Yep, my point on this site for many years is that it’s important for acts like Childers and Jinks and others to be successful and make a good living from their musical careers because if we want more like them it has to be a viable career not just a long hard battle (like Lindi Ortega has spoke of).
As a consumer or fan it’s easy to just say well I can listen to what I like so who cares about the other stuff but that other stuff in the end allows for more music we like.
March 23, 2019 @ 12:28 pm
Hate to break it to you, but demographic shifts show no indication that people are moving back to the country or small towns. It’s a nice pipe dream, but rural America simply doesn’t have the jobs to support a big movement away from the city. Additionally, I think we romanticize small towns way too much in Country music. Rural poverty is growing and shows no signs it will slow down. Instead big cities have experienced increased gentrification that has shoved the “undesirables” out of town.
I think there is value in rural America and small towns, hell I work in rural America, but I’m under no grand illusions about the kids moving back. That ship sailed long ago.
March 23, 2019 @ 12:40 pm
You don’t know how lucky you are. Australian small towns are getting discovered and build out as rich people’s holiday homes and now our lovely empty beaches are full of idiots. More cops, more traffic
March 23, 2019 @ 1:55 pm
Agreed Mike, but I nowhere said this is happening. It’s just what it would take. I’m down at the barn at the moment. Almost full this spring boarding horses. The lead trainer graduates from nursing school in December. Smart gal, and a sign of the times.
March 25, 2019 @ 6:01 pm
We need a Mel Tillis or Bobby bare streets of Baltimore moment. Whitey morgan comes to mind but I don’t think he has the universal appeal. He’s too honky tonk and that’s a bygone notion
March 17, 2022 @ 10:40 am
The only solution to this is to fix commercial radio by people getting angry and political enough to force the federal government to come up with a new version of the Communications Act of 1934 that would re-regulate radio and TV, and also help to break up these big media monopolies that were allowed to buy up every radio station and then program nothing but pop music (and pop country) on radio; my belief is that once stations are sold off and are free as they used to be, then (and only then) can country get artists that are actual country to thrive again.
March 23, 2019 @ 12:14 pm
At least as country as Kane Browneye.
March 23, 2019 @ 1:12 pm
Ugh. And folks THIS is what happens when you let the standard slide.. It is honestly not a far “jump” from Kane Brown to this song. All joking aside, this song could receive play on my local pop county station, because it is so much like Kane Brown and the others . Unreal.
March 23, 2019 @ 1:13 pm
A more noble and permanent solution would be removing rap from existence. This solution would provide societal benefits as well.
March 23, 2019 @ 7:44 pm
even if you take away their rap and hip hop white people will find something else other than country to listen to.
March 24, 2019 @ 2:30 am
There’s nothing wrong with hip-hop as such. The basic formula of rapping over a break-beat simply “works” and during its ’80s and ’90s heyday it was some of the most exciting music on the planet.
March 23, 2019 @ 1:55 pm
In what way is this a country song?
March 23, 2019 @ 2:46 pm
The absolutely ridiculous part is without listening to the song I looked up the lyrics and tried to imagine how they would be sung and Rap was not the first thing that came to mind. Instead all I could think of was some bro country guy pseudo singing pseudo rapping it. We are at a point where those lyrics are believable on country radio and that’s the saddest part of this whole thing.
March 25, 2019 @ 8:37 am
The first thing that I thought of was Kidd Rock. This could easily be a KR song…
March 23, 2019 @ 2:48 pm
That is NOT A COUNTRY SONG AT ALL.!!! IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE ANY KIND OF COUNTRY TO IT AT ALL..SO DO NOT EVEN TRY TO LABEL IT AS A COUNTRY SONG!!!
March 23, 2019 @ 2:56 pm
Obviously it’s not country at all and nobody but someone with the most stereotyped and ignorant view of what country music is could think so. However… is it really any less country than the rock and R&B songs Music Row brands as “country” these days?
March 23, 2019 @ 3:48 pm
Call me old school but country music is Kool Moe Dee’s “Wild Wild West” and Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Buttermilk Biscuits.”
End of discussion. ????
March 23, 2019 @ 8:48 pm
Amazing. You deserve a medal for the comment of the year for that reference. I remember listening to Buttermilk Biscuits on my cassette Walkman! Not to mention Posse on Brooaadwaayy!
March 23, 2019 @ 4:18 pm
Grady Smith was mentioned earlier… check out his recent “That Ain’t Country” video. This is one of three things he mentions in it.
As for my take… when I first saw that this made #19 on the country charts (via Country Standard Time), I was as surprised as you. It also brings to mind this sadly precisent prediction from one of Farce the Music’s “In the Year 2030” posts:
Number 1 country song is the hip-hop anthem “Slut-ass Hoe” which wasn’t even released to country radio but gained interest because the rapper casually mentioned being from the south in the lyrics.
Getting trap songs to chart in country. I weep for the future.
March 23, 2019 @ 4:27 pm
Thank you Trigger and Well said. This song is trash.
March 23, 2019 @ 4:31 pm
I honestly think country will come back. This song was a meme after all and some jackass mislabeled it. But anyway due the growing success of other artist like Cody jinks and Ashley McBride. You also have acts that have broken thru like Stapleton, Cody Johnson, and Jon pardi, and midland. Real country is slowly coming back.
March 24, 2019 @ 8:31 am
On this side note I’m happy to finally say……….I saw Cody Jinks Friday night and of course he was incredible! Tore through 23 songs to a sold out venue of 2500 in Madison, WI. He said from the stage “the first time I played Madison there were 4 people, look at us now!” Crowd sang every song. Another great night in my life I can attribute to this site. Seems to be a lot of those lately.
March 23, 2019 @ 5:48 pm
Bone, thugs and harmony did it better twenty years ago with ghetto cowboy. But it never made it to the country charts.
March 23, 2019 @ 8:59 pm
Also brings to mind MC Ren’s verse in the hit NWA song “something like that”.
“Well for the record it’s Ren, and for the street it’s villain…..
And strapped with a gat, it’s more like Matt Dillon
On “Gunsmoke”, but I’m not a man of the law….
I’m just the baddest motherfucker that you ever saw”.
But of course NWA wasn’t being categorized as country in the early 90s.
March 24, 2019 @ 2:03 am
De La Soul sampled Johnny Cash on their single The Magic Number. I guess these days that would make the country charts too.
March 23, 2019 @ 8:12 pm
I’m guessing this has been answered in other articles but I’m curious if anyone could share here how often charts other than country music get this “dumpster” or “stick it there cuz don’t nobody want it” treatment?
March 23, 2019 @ 11:19 pm
In a parallel universe, there are disgruntled hip-hop fans wondering why a bunch of cracker farm boys are appropriating their influences to make bad country pop. They’re frustrated as they see pop songs infiltrating their charts and festival slots, downgrading the artists of the genre who are setting the pace for expression and creativity. They want to see the best music rise to the top, and understand that there’s a commercial application to the music too, but one that shouldn’t undermine the founding principles of the genre. Those disgruntled hip-hop fans are our brothers and sisters in arms.
More specifically, yes, songs that don’t belong on genre charts are disrupting every genre of music. I wrote about it a bit in this article:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/history-making-1-runs-on-billboards-genre-charts-are-an-aberration/
March 23, 2019 @ 8:23 pm
Country fans should be happy that new people are listening to other country songs now because of this. It’s a country rap song, stop crying.
March 24, 2019 @ 1:32 pm
It’s not even a good song though
March 25, 2019 @ 10:31 pm
Maybe not here, but everywhere else more people would disagree with that statement than would agree. Name the last song that had country elements and reached #1 on the Apple Music charts. You can’t. I seriously don’t understand why you guys think this is a bad song. This song is real country like current rap is real hip hop. Different? Maybe. Bad? Definitely not.
March 26, 2019 @ 8:36 am
There’s actually a been a ton of country-sounding songs hitting the top of the charts lately. Luke Combs and Scotty McCreery just in the last couple of weeks. In fact a strong case can be made that country music is in a strong traditional resurgence, aside from a few outliers. “Old Town Road” is not country.
March 28, 2019 @ 6:11 am
You’re right about one thing: “This song is country like current rap is real hip hop.” Exactly. Not at all. And it’s trash juice. The lyrics are equivalent to a Kid Rock song. Let me guess, you like that Gucci Gang shit too?
March 25, 2019 @ 1:09 pm
Thank you Trigger for this reply! I will read the article you linked.
As someone who appreciates all forms of music it’s disheartening to see some folks stating that rap should not exist. I love your “brothers and sisters in arms” phrase.
March 23, 2019 @ 9:16 pm
Still more country then Stu
March 23, 2019 @ 10:50 pm
I think some artists just want money…and their heart is not in the music. They play what they think people want to hear.
March 24, 2019 @ 7:13 am
This has been happening since the dawn of “popular” music.
May 17, 2019 @ 6:40 pm
and do you really think everyone who works for a living does what they do because they just love the occupation and don’t care about the paycheck they get?
March 24, 2019 @ 4:58 am
Artificial Intelligence.
March 24, 2019 @ 7:12 am
No, they don’t. And Billboard won’t. If Upchurch, the whole Average Joes roster of “country rappers” chart, why wouldn’t this act? It’s pretty simple. Do I think some of those acts “belong” there? Not really, but I also understand charts exist for reasons beyond narrow genre definitions, especially since genres were created out of a need to segregate “race records” back in the day from the white acts, mainly for parents.
March 24, 2019 @ 7:15 am
Just noticed that it somehow was moved. Guess there’s a first time for everything.
March 24, 2019 @ 7:44 am
Just come out and say it Matt Bjorke. Don’t beat around the bush. We’re all racist for expecting Billboard to remove a song from the country charts not even the artist wanted there.
May 17, 2019 @ 6:48 pm
Lil Nas X’s associate entered the song as a country song. He was happy it was on the charts, that’s why he was pissed when it got off the charts and he heard the bs reason billboard took it off.
March 24, 2019 @ 7:27 am
Sad part is, because radio is so stupid these days, this crap will probably wind up on “country” radio as “the next big thing”
March 24, 2019 @ 10:39 am
Imagine the rap songs that would’ve charted country back in the day if billboard was as messed up then as it is now. “Wild Wild West” by Kool Moe Dee would’ve hit #1. The Will Smith version would’ve charted, as not to mention “Cowboys” by the The Fugees. Beastie Boys would’ve had 2 #1’s, the aforementioned “High Plains Drifter” and “Paul Revere”.
March 24, 2019 @ 10:43 am
Make no mistake, this song is awful, but it’s not worse than current Nashville pop country. I might even appreciate it more, since it most likely didn’t take a team of writers.
March 24, 2019 @ 8:49 pm
This is a country song. If you pay attention to what other country artist qualify country songs to be than you will realize this is considered to be a country song. There is no debate about it period end of story.
March 25, 2019 @ 3:16 pm
Still better than Walker Hayes, Old Domininon and Kane Brown
March 25, 2019 @ 6:11 pm
Country, Rap, Pop or whatever the hell that track was, it is the audio embodiment of the poop emoji.
March 26, 2019 @ 5:29 am
lmao y’all really just haters ???????????? this song slaps. nothing ever stays the same, he put his culture on country music.
March 28, 2019 @ 6:16 am
You mean appropriated the culture, like a lot of “country” artists have done with hip hop? GTFO. It’s not the worst, but slaps? PLEASE, it’s lyrically equivalent to a Kid Rock song and sounds like mumble trash. I’d rather listen to just plain ol’ Nas instead
May 17, 2019 @ 6:53 pm
if you think this is mumble trash, you’re deaf. You don’t know what mumble rap is, apparently. And I’d rather listen to the lyrics to OTR than something as stupid as Luke Combs “A beer never broke my heart” or whatever dumb lyrics he says. The main reason I don’t listen to much country is BECAUSE of the retarded lyrics they have.
May 20, 2019 @ 11:41 am
Sounds like you haven’t listened to a lot of country besides what’s on the radio. That’s like saying all rap songs talk about is killing and selling drugs.
March 26, 2019 @ 7:36 pm
I listened to it and it has a small country vibe (like real small) to it but it’s def a hip hop song. It’s like a hip hop artist recording a song for a modern day western movie, it includes a country feel but it’s hip hop, should def not be on a country music chart.
March 27, 2019 @ 8:00 am
Stereogum is mad at the Triggerman..lol
https://www.stereogum.com/2037174/lil-nas-x-old-town-road/franchises/status-aint-hood/
March 27, 2019 @ 4:29 pm
I just saw on Twitter that the song has been removed. I didn’t read every posted response but the first dozen or so I read were people defending the Lil Nas X and why country artists have songs on the Pop Charts that are permitted to be there. Someone even brought up ‘Dirt Road Anthem’ being a rap country song and ‘Meant To Be’ being the longest running #1 country song that features “a trap beat”.
I had an impulse to respond but preferred to just stay out of the fray.
March 27, 2019 @ 6:25 pm
There is a war on country music and if you can’t see it happening or coming, OPEN YOUR EYES. Kane brown is a liberal shill, “bulletproof backpacks to school”, yeah keep it shill. Country folks aren’t annoyed enough by him, so now we have Lil Nas X taking over the charts, while the media sits back and hopes a country artist makes a racist comment. Luckily, none of the current country artists have taken the bait. I’m sure they are happy to be triggering country fans though, because that’s also their goal.
On a side note, the biggest mass shooting ever with no motive, involving country music fans, soon after trump became president, was no coincidence. At least 95% of country fans are going to be conservative, goes without saying.
I could go on and on about the obvious attack on country music that is taking place but ill end it here. Good luck to us all.
March 30, 2019 @ 7:35 pm
I’ve been hearing this song for the past couple of days and I literally just assumed it was a Kane Brown song.
March 30, 2019 @ 10:40 pm
Mush mouth garbage. Just an attempt at appropriation by the failing hip hop scene.
April 9, 2019 @ 6:44 am
Rap is the number one genre in the US clown. ????????
April 8, 2019 @ 8:28 pm
“Furthermore, Lil Nas X is not professing to be a country artist. He’s not signed to a country label, and has no affiliation to the country industry whatsoever. Lil Nas X has no ties to the greater Nashville music campus in any capacity. There are no country artists guesting on the track like you had with Bebe Rexha’s collaboration with Florida Georgia Line’s “Meant To Be.””
This is the crux of the entire argument here and it feels nothing less than bigoted. Lil Nas X HAS indeed claimed the song is both country and trap. Not having ties to Nashville or allowing “real” country artists to grace your songs with their presence means you can’t make country music? While I enjoy much of this site and love much of the music celebrated here, I think these kinds of statements merit serious self-examination from those contributing to its territorialist attitudes.
May 17, 2019 @ 6:45 pm
BEST comment on here.
April 13, 2019 @ 12:08 am
I’m not a big fan of this song. That being said, I believe that Hip Hop and country have been close relatives for a long time. When I hear “Devil went down to Georgia ” I have always heard a Hip Hop country song. The outlaw vibe has been embraced by both genres because they both have lower class, working man (or woman), trying to survive type roots. Finally, I used to hate Garth Brooks because I didn’t think he was true country. But he saved country music at a time that it was in a decline. He sparked a revolution in the genre, but there was also an eventual increase in people listening to older country styles. Country music is big enough to embrace a Hip Hop Country subclass and as more people are listening to both, we’re likely to see much more blurring and blending.
May 12, 2019 @ 11:03 pm
I love how you fail to quote the chorus line “Im gonna take my horse to the old town road I’m gonna, ride till I can’t no more”. It’s a song about being a loner, riding a lonely path. How is that less country than Florida Georgia State Line singing about girls in bikinis? Like just because it’s a trap instrumental doesn’t mean its disqualified, the way the banjo riff is implemented feels more country than half this bro country shit. this really is the terrible underbelly of the internet.
June 7, 2021 @ 2:47 am
Lil Nas X should have taken a lesson from his English counterpart, Digga D. Both were Nicki Minaj superfans as kids, but Digga D went on to make actual good music, while Lil went on to make trash.