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On digital services like the short-form video platform TikTok (previously Musical.ly) and the audio platform SoundCloud, a class of primarily hip-hop artists are racking up huge streaming numbers. Piracy, streaming and social media have reshaped the industry, allowing rising stars to find fans without the help of industry support. The formulaic results are cut by artists and sent to radio, where they climb the charts on the merits of their cross-generational appeal.īut over the past decade, the origin stories of stars have changed dramatically. Songwriters gather in camps to layer mathematical hooks over sticky beats.
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Huge portions of the music industry are still run like an assembly line. “He has remained authentic and true to his art and this is just the beginning.”
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“He’s been able to break down cultural barriers as well as pre-existing notions of musical genres,” Ron Perry, the chairman & CEO of Columbia Records, Lil Nas’ label, tells TIME. All this has the people who usually make money off stars like Lil Nas X questioning long-held assumptions about who consumes what, how and when. More and more in recent years, hip-hop has been merging with country, a genre long associated with white conservatism. As streaming and social media have democratized pathways to success, hip-hop–once an outlet for disenfranchised people of color–has become the dominant sound of popular music. The fact that Lil Nas has risen so far and so fast testifies not only to his skill, but also to the erosion of the systems that for generations kept artists like him on the sidelines. There aren’t many queer black stars in American culture, point-blank. There aren’t many black stars in country music there aren’t many queer stars in hip-hop. Yet even from his perch at the top of the charts, Lil Nas is still an outlier. “Old Town Road” is the sensibility of the Internet, which thrives on the juxtaposition of opposites, playing on your car radio and as you shop at the supermarket. Phenomena that once solely existed in digital spaces–the idea of canceling someone, the contagious popularity of a nonsensical thing, the rise of influencer culture–have become a part of everyday life. But the rise of Lil Nas X represents a larger moment in our culture. It’s weird, beguiling and inarguably fun–a tonic for these times.Ī hit song doesn’t need to stand for anything, of course. (Sample lyric: “Ridin’ on a horse, ha/ You can whip your Porsche.”) Yet it was written solely by Lil Nas X using a beat he purchased online for $30. Not coincidentally, it’s a perfect meme–catchy, quick, self-referential and subversive.
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As Lil Nas himself put it on Twitter: “It’s crazy how any baby born after march has not lived in a world where old town road wasn’t number 1.”Īll of this has made “Old Town Road” the defining sound of the year, a slurry, genre-busting interpolation of two quintessential American musical genres: country and hip-hop. 1 song in history, having occupied the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 19 weeks, blocking new singles from Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran, and dethroning the previous record holders, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s 1995 hit “One Sweet Day” and Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber’s 2017 single “Despacito.” It’s been streamed more than a billion times on Spotify alone. Four months later, “ Old Town Road” has defied all expectations.