Billy Ray Cyrus enters the country music line Lil Nas X

Billboard has decided to remove Old Town Road, the song of Lil Nas X, from his painting Hot Country Songs.

The song hit number 19 on the chart before it's deleted.

Billboard told Rolling Stone that the song had been deleted because "it does not contain enough elements of the current country music to be in its current form".

A remix of the song including Billy Ray Cyrus has been released since.

When the news of Lil Nas X's exclusion from the country music scoreboard was announced, Billy Ray Cyrus tweeted his support for the young artist.

The country music legend said that "only the outlaws are outlawed" and advised the 19-year-old rapper to "take this as a compliment".

Old Town Road is currently ranked 15th on the Billboard Top 100 and has been viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube.

The song took on importance after becoming viral on the TikTok lip sync application.

It is unclear whether the reworked version will be included in the Billboard Country Music Chart.

In an interview with Time Magazine about the controversy, Lil Nas X described the song as "a country trap" and stated that she should be eligible for inclusion in the country music charts and R & B

The song includes elements of trap music from the hip-hop scene of the late 1990s in the southern United States.

The decision to exclude the track from the map – and its lack of playlists of radio stations – has been sharply criticized on social networks.

Many people suggested that the decision not to classify the song as a country was a proof of racism on the country music scene.

While many people applauded Billy Ray Cyrus for his support of the young artist, a number of social media users wondered why it was necessary for him to intervene.

The controversy also sparked a conversation about the interplay between musical genres, and many cited other examples of multinational artists featured on the country music chart.

Twitter user @Sojourner wrote"Whites are always infiltrating hip-hop, rap and pop … and black culture, they are rewarded and called innovators, but a black man does, and he's a Nah, good for Lil Nas X. He's got a country hit. "