Country music has been targeted before by hypersensitive social justice warriors for it’s “perplexing whiteness,” this being an extension of the sudden interest in century-old Confederate statutes.
And now that a rapper’s song was removed from the Billboard’s Hot Country chart because… well, it’s not a country song, the same racial justice crowd is back for more — the qualifying factor in the complaints apparently being that the rapper is black.
Which overlooks the complexities of today’s music industry.
Rapper Lil Nas X’s hit “Old Town Road,” was taken from the country music chart by Billboard because it supposedly isn’t country “enough,” according to Fox News. “Even though the lyrics talk about riding horses and tractors, and the official music video featured a Western theme.
As country music singer David Allan Coe once sang, “If that ain’t country, I’ll kiss your *ss.”
Never mind that the pronounced trap beat featured by the Atlanta-based rapper is not common to country music — which is not to say that much of today’s “country music” is all that country.
The song debuted at No. 19 on Billboard’s Hot Country chart three weeks ago, before being removed.
The media brand issued a statement explaining its decision.
“When determining genres, a few factors are examined, but first and foremost is musical composition. While ‘Old Town Road’ incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version,” the release said.
The artist pitched the fact that his song was removed on social media and he didn’t lack for support.
i think if they kept lil nas x song on the country chart he would’ve destroyed every and any record set by country artists. which would destroy traditional country as we know it.
— Jazz Cartier (@JazzCartier) March 28, 2019
Y’all better let @LilNasX be a country music star!
— Khleo Thomas (@KhleoThomas) March 27, 2019
If Lil Nas X can’t be on the billboard country list cause it "it does not embrace enough elements of today's country music" then I want EVERY Post Malone song on the billboard hip hop list taken down immediately
— aérostotle (@YungJayy_) March 28, 2019
They didn’t like seeing “Lil” “Nas” & “X” listed on their shit. https://t.co/diCGV1Hrlp
— Ebro (@oldmanebro) March 27, 2019
Billboard pushed back, according to Fox News, insisting that its decision to take the song off of the country chart “had absolutely nothing to do with the race of the artist.”
As the great country music singer Charlie Pride may attest, sing a good country song and your race plays no role in how your music is received — the black singer had 40 #1 hits in country music over a 20 year period.
The website SavingCountryMusic.com claimed Lil Nas X “maliciously manipulated the charts” and that Billboard “corrected” the error.
People are being mislead by a verifiably incorrect clickbait headline by Rolling Stone. "Country music" as a genre cannot kick Lil Nas X off Billboard's country charts for race or any reason. He maliciously manipulated the charts & the error was corrected.https://t.co/FUsvkMOXkg
— Saving Country Music (@KyleCoroneos) March 28, 2019
“Though the song is clearly a hip-hop track with a trap beat, Lil Nas X labeled it as country on SoundCloud, iTunes, and elsewhere to purposely receive favorable chart positioning, and “Old Town Road” ended up debuting at #19 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated March 16th,” Kyle Coroneos explained.
“Then Billboard, after discovering the ruse, switched Lil Nas X and ‘Old Town Road’ to the Hot Rap Songs chart.”
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The longest-tenured writer at BizPac Review, Tom grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills.
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