NEWS: Record- Breaking (and mind- blowing): Lil Nas X with 'Old Town Road'
Still going strong on its second week at the top of Billboard 100 is 'Old Town Road' by up and coming Atlanta star, Lil Nas X. However, we especially love the remix version ft. Billy Ray Cyrus, because it represents the musical rebellion that we love so much.
"But wait a second...how on earth did he get here?"
Great question. Lil Nas X, or Montero Lamar Hill, actually began his career as a Twitter personality. With the rise of social media, this should surely not come as a shock or surprise to anybody. He had a Nicki Minaj fan account called 'NasMaraj'. An account which he used to post a lot of threads, popularised by the dashboard application, Tweetdeck. Slowly, but surely, he built a large following of fans. It was then these fans that inspired, or should we say, "encouraged" Lil Nas to get into music.
20-year-old college dropout Montero gave in and started uploading music onto Soundcloud. However, his recent claim to fame 'Old Town Road' was actually released on the 3rd December 2018. So why didn't we hear about it back then? Well, the song only went viral in March 2019 due to the 'Yee Haw' challenge that became popular on the video app Tic-Tok:
Whether you love the challenge or you hate it- the Lil Nas track is super catchy,
From the app, various memes were developed which meant that the track spread even more like wildfire, meaning that everyone from from junior basketball teams to Justin Bieber, heard about it. However, despite all of the attention that it had gathered thus far, 'Old Town Road' was put under the global spotlight as a result of the controversy that emerged when the track was not considered "country" enough to be featured on the 'Hot Country Songs' chart. This was a decision that was highly criticised by music fans all over the world. But the story certainly doesn't end here.
Enter country singer- Billy Ray Cyrus. He was watching everything going down, and so he offered comfort to Lil Nas. In the form of a private message, Cyrus welcomed Nas personally to the group of "outlaws". Days later, Nas and Cyrus cooked up an unbelievable remix to 'Old Town Road'. Don't know about you, but it's had us bopping all over the place.
If you haven't seen it yet, check out the video of Old Town Road Remix ft. Billy Ray Cyrus below:
Could Lil Nas be the new face of an old road? Guess we'll just have to watch this space.