Lil Nas's song was removed from Billboard for not being enough "country". But who decides on categories?

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A debate around what looks like country music – or more exactly what it sounds like – is taking shape around Lil Nas X, a 19-year-old black musician from Atlanta. His Old Town Road song was removed from Billboard's Hot Country Songs last week, with map compilers saying it was not enough. According to Chart Data, an account that gathers data from Billboard and other sources, the song would have become number one in this week's Billboard Hot Country Songs list if it had not been removed.

The song has a slightly pinched banjo, pastoral lyrics and tells a clear story. It also contains programmed drums and hip-hop elements. It was published by Columbia, which describes it as a "country-inspired rap title". He is at the top of the Apple Music country rankings and is ranked as a country on Soundcloud.

Initially, Billboard accepted the evaluation, including the track in the Hot Country Songs chart. However, last week they changed their minds stating that "while Old Town Road incorporates references to country and cowboy images, it does not embrace enough elements of current country music to feature in its current version ".

The precise elements that make up the "current country music" are strongly contested. The Hot Country Songs disc currently includes songs like Kelsea Ballerini's Miss Me More, which contains a guitar and pop-sampled beats, and Bebe Rexha and Meant to Be from Florida Georgia Line, which offers singing strikes, beats to repetition and pop productions. No track, at least for the layman, sounds more "in the country" than Old Town Road.

In the past, when white country stars tried to rap, they could also stay on the map. Toby Keith made a foray into rap with his song I Wanna Talk About Me, which became number one in November 2001.

Some people think that there is a racial element in the decision to keep Lil Nas X off the charts. On Twitter, the former director of the country music label Shane Morris alleged this "Lil Nas X was launched in the Billboard charts because the (traditional) country music market is saturated with racism and fanaticism.

Other black artists who have written country-inspired songs have struggled to be recognized. When Beyoncé submitted Daddy Lessons to the Grammy National Committee for review, she was rejected.

In an interview with Time from three days ago, Lil Nas X claimed that the song had the right to be placed there. "The song is a country trap. It's not one, it's not the other. It's both. He should be on both. "

He also answered the question of knowing he thought that the removal of the song had "racial nuances" in an ambivalent way: "I think every time you try something new, you'll always a kind of bad reception, "said Lil Nas X However, the reception he receives from other artists in the country has been rather positive.

Yesterday, on Twitter, the country country group Florida Georgia Line published a photoshoppée photo of Lil Nas X holding his album in his hands with the following legend: "I can not say that I am not country" (the title of their new album) and "@ LilNasX #rockon."

So who defines which country music? For the moment, it seems that musicians have the last word.

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