Sometimes these memes are just fun, but some appear to be demeaning or lampoon cowboy and rural culture. Yes, people are making memes of this meme. Partly fueling the phenomenon behind an otherwise pedestrian hip-hop/trap song is Instagram and other social media users creating their own memes and using the song in the background. These concerns are underscored further by how “Old Town Road” has gone viral. This set an incredibly bad, and possibly historically significant precedent that could result in existential ramifications in the country genre, and make complaints about Sam Hunt, or even Bebe Rexha getting placed on country charts for pop songs pale in comparison. Nonetheless, Lil Nas X and “Old Town Road” debuted at #19 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated March 16th, and also was labeled country by iTunes and other music providers in their metrics. There are no country artists guesting on the track like you had with Bebe Rexha’s collaboration with Florida Georgia Line’s “Meant To Be.” There appears to be absolutely no credible reason to include this song on a country chart aside from a bigoted stereotype bred from the fact that horses and cowboy hats are referenced in the lyrics. Lil Nas X has no ties to the greater Nashville music campus in any capacity. He’s not signed to a country label, and has no affiliation to the country industry whatsoever. Furthermore, Lil Nas X is not professing to be a country artist. “Old Town Road” is no more country than The Beastie Boys’ “High Plains Drifter.” Including Wild West signifiers or references to horses in no way qualifies a rap song with a trap beat as country. But it’s “Old Town Road” that has put him on the national and international map, along with its accompanying video set randomly to scenes from the Wild West video game Red Dead Redemption 2 like your teenage son may do to one of his favorite songs. The trap artist and DJ released a 7-song EP in the summer of 2018 called Nasarati. He’s not entirely new to the music scene. Lil Nas X, whose birth name is Montero Lamar Hill, is an Atlanta-based hip-hop artist who released “Old Town Road” in December. But a 1:53-long viral “song” that is really nothing more than an internet meme entitled “Old Town Road” by rapper “Lil Nas X” has rekindled the debate anew, with critical implications behind it. That debate won’t be resolved here or anywhere else. The debate about what is country music and what isn’t is an eternal one, and can turn nauseating and redundant very quickly in the way different factions fight back and forth about the definition and boundaries of the genre.
0 kommentar(er)
