Lil Nas X Wishes Beyoncé, Shaboozey’s Country Success ‘Would Have Happened’ for Him
“Old Town Road” — and its remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus — was removed from Billboard’s Hot Country Songs for supposedly not being country enough
Lil Nas X at the 2024 Met Gala CINDY ORD/MG24/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE MET MUSEUM/VOGUE
Lil Nas X thinks he deserved some of the Cowboy Carter treatment when he dropped “Old Town Road.” In a new interview with BBC, Nas said he was “happy” that artists like Beyoncé and Shaboozey are being celebrated for their country fusion forays, but wishes his music was also celebrated in the country space in the same way.
“I wish this would have happened for me,” he told the outlet. “I wasn’t even able to experience this.”
In the last two months, Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” have made history the top of the Hot Country Songs, the same chart that Lil Nas’ song “Old Town Road” was removed from in 2019, because it did “not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current form,” according to Billboard.
The song’s removal from the chart made people question if Nas’ race played a role in the decision. Lil Nas even released a remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, propelling the song’s popularity, though it was too late to help it jump on the country charts. “I think it was Number 19 at the time,” Cyrus told Rolling Stone at the time. “I thought maybe I could help him drop the nine.” (Rolling Stone did a deep-dive on the controversial decision at the time.)
Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter made history as the first album by a Black woman to top the Country Albums chart. The record’s lead single “Texas Hold ‘Em” made her the first Black woman artist ever to top Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. Now, one of her collaborators on the album, the Nigerian-American musician Shaboozey, has picked up the torch for another history-making feat by reaching No. 1 on the chart.
In the BBC interview, Nas was asked if he would reconsider stepping back into country sonics in the future. He said he had been “trying out some country [sounds] here and there over the last couple of years,” but that ultimately, “I want to feel connected to it and not force it.”
Lil Nas X has leaned into more rap and hip-hop-leaning sounds in his recent releases. Aside from collaborations with Kevin Abstract and Camila Cabello, the musician has dropped four singles on SoundCloud: “Light Again,” “Right There,” “Lean on my Body,” and “Trust Me.” The songs are seemingly part of an upcoming mixtape, titled Nasarti 2.
From Rolling Stone US.
