This excerpt reminded me of a piece I read last week titled, “ What Does Gen Z Have Against Question Marks?” Gen Zs have a specific way of writing: question marks are unnecessary capital letters are uncool periods are harsh. (The way Bach might’ve felt about counterpoint or Minaj feels about wordplay, Nas feels about capitalization, punctuation and rhythm, always knowing when the proper use of a period would ruin the joke.) He writes them the way he writes his songs, pacing and structure and impact all top of mind, within tight constraints. Just look at his tweets, they said-as deftly written and pored over as haikus. In Hughes’ piece for The Times, Lil Nas X’s collaborators emphasize his fluency in digital language: (Fun fact: Lil Nas X knew of Billy Ray because he’d watched Hannah Montana growing up.) Their remix hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained at the top for 19 weeks, breaking Mariah Carey’s 16-week record. He responded to Billboard saying he wasn’t country enough by lining up a remix with the most country of country singers: Billy Ray Cyrus. Even bona fide superstars have faced resistance: Beyoncé tried to submit her Lemonade track “Daddy Lessons” as a country song, but was rejected. The Billboard charts have long had a fraught relationship with race: the R&B chart, for instance, was originally titled “race music” the Latin songs chart lumps together a dozen genres into one ethnic category. In April, Billboard removed “Old Town Road” from the country charts, saying the song, “does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.” Many saw this (rightfully) as mainstream country’s rejection of a Black artist. Adding viral lyrics to song titles would become commonplace in 2020-doing so helps people find popular TikTok songs-but at the time it was groundbreaking. Understanding this, Lil Nas X wrote the original version of “Old Town Road” to be just 1:53.įor a time, Lil Nas X even changed the song title to “Old Town Road (I got the horses in the back)”. Shorter songs get streamed more, which incentivizes artists to release shorter music.
Today’s music charts are heavily influenced by the number of times a song is streamed.
Then, Lil Nas X wrote a song wired for the streaming age. Yes, the beat to the longest-running #1 in history was bought online for $30. He started by buying the beat for “Old Town Road” for $30 on BeatStars, where a Dutch teenager named Kiowa Roukema had uploaded it. But he knew that his music had to be tailor-made for the internet. In late 2018, Lil Nas X decided to use his online platforms to promote his music. He had a natural instinct for what content would go viral. He also managed several large Nicki Minaj fan accounts (more on that later). Before turning to music, he ran a Twitter meme account with 30K followers. Lil Nas X grew up online, crafting and honing a deep understanding of internet culture.