‘Old Town Road’ Becomes Hit Lead for Billboard Hot 100

Julia Cornwell, Staff Writer

Our favorite recent hit that we’ve been hearing everywhere we go, ‘Old Town Road’, has not surprisingly hit lead for Billboard Hot 100 for the third week in a row.

This song originated from the Yeehaw Challenge on Tik Tok but broke out onto our own playlists. Released on December 3, 2018, it only became more popular this year.

Montero Lamar Hill, who goes by Lil Nas X, left his audience in awe by introducing us to country rap and metaphorically bridging the gap between those two genres for those who sided with one or the other.

Congratulating Lil Nas X for his capability to give a rap song a country feel, he’s reached amazing statistics. ‘Thank U, Next’ by Ariana Grande gained 93.8 million total weekly U.S. streams. Meanwhile ‘Old Town Road’ gained a soaring 143 million total weekly U.S. streams. His first remix blew up with Billy Ray Cyrus, and another one with Young Thug is in the works after he cited him as a pioneer of country trap.

“I am so glad that it is on top charts because I think it is a bop for all. It mixes rap and country and both rap and country are well liked music tastes across the nation.” (Annika Jernstedt ‘21)

The background of this song is pretty inspiring. Lil Nas X was discouraged by his parents to start a musical career and dropped out of school to focus on it like most rappers nowadays.

However, living off of 3 hours of sleep each night, he managed to prove his parents very wrong. He spun the song’s name to be a symbol for his success and was inspired by his family’s doubt to write the chorus “can nobody tell me nothing.”