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In Atlanta last weekend the sun is shot down; the warm South air was already thick and wet, not even in the middle of April. In the historic district of Sweet Auburn – a hub of the civil rights and black entrepreneurship movement – families gathered to visit the childhood home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his famous church and his tomb. . On the roads, the resounding sound of Lil Nas X's "old town" flowed from so many car windows. The intoxicating bbad line and banjo notes filled the air, indicating that "Old Town Road" was bound to be a defining song of next summer.
Yes, I will take my horse to the old town
I'm going cycling until I can not go
I will take my horse on the old town
I'm going cycling until I can not go
Lil Nas X's viral hit, "Old Town Road," became the number 1 of the Billboard Hot 100, Billboard announced Monday night, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Atlanta-born artist. While it was coming out for the first time "Old Town Road" – a sonic banjo mash, a sample and a trap of Nine Inch Nails – in December 2018, its popularity has exploded in recent weeks and the blurred style single has become a flash point for dialogue around race and gender, separate paintings and the long exclusion of black artists in the country music industry.
Lil Nas X, born Montero Lamar Hill, sings the chorus of "Old Town Road" with a southern drawl and delivers her verses about cowboy hats and infidelity with an exaggerated twang, punctuated by a sub-bbad hip-hop. The song is just contagious, the kind that stays in your head for weeks, a genre straddling the gender equally and an energetic head. As Lil Nas X told Time, "The song is country trap. It's neither one nor the other. It's both. "
In March, "Old Town Road" appeared simultaneously on three charts: Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Hot R & B / Hip Hop. But after only a week, Billboard removed the single from Hot Country Songs. "Although" Old Town Road "incorporates references to images of country and cowboys, it does not encompbad enough elements of the current country music to figure in its current version," said Billboard at Rolling Stone in a statement.
This decision was a follow-up to this editorial published on the Saving Country Music website, "Billboard is to remove" Old Town Road "from Lil Nas X of Country Chart," which stated: "The inclusion of Wild West signifiers or references to horses is in no way a rap In addition, Lil Nas X does not claim to be a country artist.He did not sign a country label, and has no affiliation with the industry from the country. "
But Lil Nas X is no less a country artist than a rapper. He gained notoriety on social media by managing a Nicki Minaj fan account and posting his memoirs, before his followers apparently encouraged him to make music. "Old Town Road" is his first real success. It goes up first on the TikTok video app and inspires countless memes and tributes. Lil Nas X is the product of the Internet and, thanks to his own wisdom, he has designed one with all the elements of the viral possibility: words to quote, a contagious hook, a trap beat, ready-to-use imagery and an innovation with the overlap of country sounds. , making "Old Town Road" stand out on the crowded floor of online music.
Billboard's action has only increased the popularity of the artist and the song, while social media has burst, calling his exclusion from the country's racist charts. The controversy came less than three years after Beyoncé's country song "Daddy Lessons" was turned down for consideration in the Grammy genre, a single that "Dan Reilly wrote for Vulture that "the song is sung by a black woman of this style," he added. The current debate takes place over 55 years after Ray Charles – rarely credited for reinventing country music – brilliantly covered the song "I Can not Stop Loving You" by Don Gibson as part of his album "Modern Sounds" in Country and Western Music ".
"The streets of the old town" should have been featured in the country charts from the start, "said journalist and music historian Dart Adams at Salon." Black artists have created the country from the very beginning of the genre, "he added, the song of the country map was absolutely impregnated with racism.
Shane Morris, who previously worked for Sony Music in Nashville, according to LinkedIn, tweeted that Lil Nas X "was launched in the Billboard charts because the (traditional) country music market is saturated with racism and fanaticism".
In his thread, he continued, "What's the difference between Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Lil Nas X? .. He still does not play guitar, but the real problem here is that Lil Nas X is a black man from Black Hollywood, AKA Atlanta."
Morris and Adams were far from the only ones, many people having questioned the sincerity of Billboard's decision. "It's a simple matter of people reacting to an obvious case of hypocrisy and trying to keep a" pure "genre that has never really been," said Adams at Salon. "If Cowboy Troy, Big & Rich, Jason Aldean, Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker could be accepted by the country's public, then Lil Nas X should too."
As Adams and Morris have indicated, white country artists mixing genre are allowed to cover and experiment with a wide range of sounds, while remaining able to retain their imprint on the country and country music charts. – a freedom that has never been considered. extended also.
"After Billboard made his statement on" Old Town Road ", a company representative added that the Lil Nas X race had played no part in their decision – a questionable comment for those who knew the # History of tacit segregation in the charts, "wrote Sheldon Pearce. for Pitchfork. "Billboard 's R & B song chart, known at times as Race Records or Hot Black Singles, was based on a racist industry policy: the idea that black music was made for and by blacks, and white music for whites.Many black artists who do not do R & B are still relegated to this category, while white artists have the freedom to roam freely in historically black genres. The Top 40 radio has held the popular black rappers at bay while admitting their white counterparts. "
Despite the anger of some circles of the Nashville country scene and the founder of Saving Country Music, which has since doubled and called the controversy around Lil Nas X "the greatest existential threat to the integrity of country music as an institution I've ever seen", some country music artists have instead lent their support. Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line wrote on his Instagram account "Old Town Road" and Bill Ray Cyrus tweeted about Lil Nas X to confirm that he was listening.
Two days later, the remix of "Old Town Road" with Cyrus was abandoned. Lil Nas X, who tweeted last December, announced it for the first time online, asking Twitter to help put Cyrus on the track.
"It was so obvious to me after I heard the song just once, and I thought it was not the country?" Cyrus tweeted later in the day. "What's the rudimentary element of a country and western song?" So I thought it was honest, humble, with an infectious hook and a banjo, what the heck do you need more?
Not only has Cyrus accelerated an already joyous success with the addition of his incredible couplets and voices, but it is also a gesture of obvious solidarity – especially if we take into account one of the lines of the op- Criticism of Saving Country Music, which explains why "Old Country Road" should not appear in the charts: "There is no country artist on the track, as you did with the collaboration of Bebe Rexha with "Meant To Be" from Florida Georgia Line. "
Cyrus solved this problem and showed that while the industry as a whole continues to perpetuate racism, not all country artists are compliant.
People will try to undermine what Lil Nas X has been doing since he seemed to stumble into the music rather than live it and breathe it. But there is no doubt that "Old Town Road" has sparked a much needed dialogue about gender, historical and lasting containment and the displacement of black artists, especially in country music. And even if Lil Nas X is only an intermediary for these critical musical conversations, "Old Town Road" is undeniably pure sonic happiness. With the help of Cyrus, he has brought musical audiences together for the summer and, hopefully, beyond.
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