If you haven’t heard of the song Old Town Road, I’m convinced you actually live under a rock. Just kidding. But hopefully that gets my point across about how popular this song has become. Old Town Road, by Lil Nas X, went viral after people began dancing to it on the app TikTok. Endless videos of people “woah”-ing to the first verse of the song appeared on every social media platform (according to the internet, it’s called the Yee Haw Challenge, but I didn’t know this). Soon after, it became a huge radio hit and reached No. 1 on the charts.
I know many people have already heard the song and know a lot about it, but I want to talk about the controversy surrounding it. Old Town Road is a unique mix of hip hop and country, which makes it one of the only songs of its kind. Although this mash up of genres has been very well received, it has also sparked a huge debate. Old Town Road initially debuted on Billboard’s cross genre Hot 100 chart, Hot Country Songs chart, and the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart all at once. However, it was eventually removed from the country chart and Billboard said his inclusion on the ranking was a mistake. Many people began asking if Old Town Road can even be considered a country song. When asking country artists and country songwriters about the song, most of them had the same answer. They agreed it was a good song, but it is not really country. However, many argue that country should not be so confined and they should expand and evolve the genre. Another layer of this debate includes race, and this is where it gets tricky. One of the possible reasons that Lil Nas X got taken off the country charts is because he is black. The country genre is predominantly white, so he automatically does not fit into the image of a country artist. A Nashville music distributor commented that “unanimously, everyone kind of looked at [Old Town Road] as a gimmick. They looked at it the same way they looked at the yodel guy.” Although both were looked down upon as “gimmicks,” Mason Ramsey (the yodel boy), who is white, was allowed to stay on the charts whereas Lil Nas X was kicked off. Some people look at this as racial discrimination, while others say it’s simply because his song is too hip hop.
So where do you stand on this debate? I’m curious whether the majority agree with the decision to remove it from the country charts, or if people think the country genre should be more inclusive.
Ashley’s Blog 
I like the argument here. After watching a YouTube music critic in Todd In The Shadows, I got to learn so much about how music works because of all of the debate sparked by this very song. The video even goes to question what even defines a genre of music anymore, because country basically sounds like pop and pop sounds like trap nowadays (don’t @ me). I think Old Town Road sounds more like a trap song than a country song, but there’s no denying the strong influence country has on it. Great post!
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I agree with Tyson’s comment. He brought up a good point that country definitely had an influence on this song. I heard about the debate and seen the memes about whether it’s country or pop, but I didn’t know they took him off the country charts.
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I can’t remember where I first heard of this debate but I find it to be quite interesting. I personally think that the original version of Old Town Road is a hip-pop song about the country. I do think that the country genre could be more inclusive and I really hope that the decision to remove it from the charts wasn’t race related because that would just be sad.
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