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Lil Nas X: How ‘Old Town Road’ changed life and how he aims to prove his country chops
“Old Town Road” is the hottest song in the world right now.
It was an instant viral hit that has spent the last eight weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. It went triple platinum in May and has been streamed over one billion times.
But the song also gained notoriety for sparking a national debate over whether a rapper, who happens to be black, can create a country hit.
The hit single, “Old Town Road,” has caused divisions within the music industry.
For Hill, all of this seemed unfathomable less than a year ago. A college dropout, Hill was living on his sister’s couch in Atlanta, trying to get anyone to listen to his songs.
He paid $30 for the beat and released the track independently.
But less than a week after the song landed on the Billboard charts, “Old Town Road” got the boot. In a statement to Rolling Stone, Billboard said the track “does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.”
That decision led to outrage online, with some fans crying discrimination.
“I can’t control what people would think. You know people always want to say something,” Hill said. “But … I know what it is.”
