Viral hit Old Town Road has been removed from Billboard's country list, saying it was not in line with that genre’s sound.
A now-ubiquitous mash-up of country and southern hip hop, cowboy hats and Gucci, stallions and Maseratis, the wildly viral songPairing banjo twangs with thumping bass, the snappy country trap tune by unknown artist-turned-industry maverick Lil Nas X appears set to soundtrack the summer, holding down the fort atop the US Top 100 chart for seven straight weeks and fending off advances from pop royalty including Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.
“Getting kicked off the country music charts seems like a small thing but represents something much more pernicious,” said Charles Hughes, author of the bookFor him, the pop culture smash is more than an earworm: “It also caught fire because this is entirely unsurprising — to see this kind of false border that’s meant to keep black people out of a space that black folks are already a part of.”
“The black cowboy was dropped when Hollywood told the story because it didn’t fit into an idea of their stereotype of an individual American with guts and bravery — a cowboy like John Wayne,” said William Katz, a historian who has written books on the topic including “The Black West.
But according to Hughes, “black artists have not been given opportunities to become mainstream country stars, even as country music has been consistently influenced and changed by black music.”
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