Black Twitter has been in an uproar over Billboard removing Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” from the Country charts.
The 19-year-old rapper released the song in December 2018 and the Internet got a hold of it and its been trending ever since. This is the most interaction we’ve seen black Millennials have with country music since Beyonce performed “Daddy’s Lessons” at the 2016 Country Music Awards.
“Old Town Road” went viral on the app TikTok, has 25 million views on Youtube, 14.7 plays on SoundCloud, and is being featured in the Internet’s most trending comedic videos. The song itself was in the top songs of both Billboard’s Hot Hip-Hop & R&B charts and Country charts. That was up until Billboard took it down from the country charts because they didn’t think the song had enough country elements.
According to Billboard, the song was put on the Country charts by accident. This led to a messy backlash and conversation about how the Country Music Industry has been extremely inclusive to a certain type of people for decades as if it wasn’t originated, like most things, by a black person.
Well if Black Twitter wasn’t enough, an undeniable Country legend stepped on to the scene. Not even two weeks has passed and Billy Ray Cyrus not only co-signed Lil Nas’s viral sensation, but he HOPPED ON THE TRACK!
Racking up 4.9 million views on Youtube and 410K listens on Soundcloud in a day. Not to mention being the featured story on every major media outlet. We stan an unproblematic Cyrus.
WE #1 ON ITUNES!!! pic.twitter.com/aRXAFJkfAr
— nope (@LilNasX) April 5, 2019
