Lil Nas X and “Old Town Road” Might Be the Next Big Thing

Every once in a while, you hear a song and immediately wonder:

What the hell is this?

That's been my reaction to Lil Nas X's “Old Town Road.”

The Atlanta rapper is still relatively unknown, but the song is already starting to move. It was released independently in December, and somehow this bizarre combination of country, trap and internet humor is beginning to find an audience.

The song shouldn't work.

A banjo. 808s. A cowboy voice. A rapper talking about horses and Porsches.

And somehow, it works perfectly.

Who Is Lil Nas X?

That's the part that's so interesting.

There isn't some huge record label machine behind him right now. Lil Nas X has been building his audience online, using Twitter and memes to get people interested in his music.

He's clearly figured out something that a lot of artists haven't:

People don't just want to hear a song anymore. They want to participate in it.

“Old Town Road” feels designed for that.

It's short. It's ridiculously catchy. The hook is immediately memorable. And there's enough humor surrounding the song that you can imagine people making their own videos, jokes and memes around it.

That's exactly what's beginning to happen.

The Song Is Completely Ridiculous

And I mean that as a compliment.

“Old Town Road” sounds like somebody took a country song, dropped it into a trap beat and decided not to ask whether any of it made sense.

The result is weirdly addictive.

The production comes from Dutch producer YoungKio, who created the beat from a sample of Nine Inch Nails' “34 Ghosts IV.” Lil Nas X reportedly bought the beat online for just $30.

Thirty dollars.

That's basically nothing for a song that already feels like it has the potential to become something enormous.

And there's a larger point here.

A kid can buy a beat online, record a song, upload it and potentially reach an audience that would have been completely inaccessible to him ten years ago.

That's what makes Lil Nas X worth watching.

“Old Town Road” Could Be Bigger Than a Viral Song

There's a difference between something being funny online and something actually having replay value.

“Old Town Road” has both.

You can laugh at the absurdity of the song, but after a couple listens, you're probably going to know the hook.

That's dangerous.

The best viral songs aren't necessarily the ones that make you laugh once.

They're the ones that get stuck in your head.

And this one is really stuck in mine.

The song has already started spreading through social media, with Lil Nas X actively pushing it through memes and internet culture. The track's rise on TikTok is beginning to accelerate, and that's exactly the kind of environment where something this catchy can explode.

The Industry Is Starting to Notice

This is where things get interesting.

The major-label world hasn't officially stepped in yet, but people in the business are clearly starting to pay attention. Amuse, which distributed some of Lil Nas X's earlier music, had already noticed the momentum around “Old Town Road” by the beginning of 2019. The company later said it offered him a label-style deal after seeing the song take off.

And if this keeps growing, there's no way the major labels are going to sit back forever.

Columbia and Capitol are exactly the kind of names I'd expect to start circling an artist like this.

The question isn't whether the industry will notice.

It's whether Lil Nas X can keep the momentum without losing what made “Old Town Road” interesting in the first place.

This Could Be Huge

It's obviously way too early to make ridiculous predictions.

But I'm going to make one anyway.

“Old Town Road” could take the world by storm.

There's something about it that feels perfectly timed.

The internet loves absurdity.

TikTok loves catchy sounds.

Hip-hop audiences are increasingly comfortable with artists crossing genres.

And country music has never really sounded like this.

Lil Nas X has somehow put all of those things into one song.

That's not easy to do.

Maybe “Old Town Road” disappears in a few weeks.

Maybe it becomes a cult internet hit.

Or maybe we're listening to the beginning of something enormous.

Right now, I’m betting on the third option.

Because the strangest part about “Old Town Road” isn't that it sounds like a country song made by a rapper.

It's that I can't stop listening to it.

And I have a feeling I'm not going to be the only one for much longer.