Lil Nas X Added Billy Ray Cyrus to ‘Old Town Road.’ Is It Country Enough for Billboard Now?

gangstagrass.. Check it out!

"The handmade gourd instruments that would become the modern banjo originated in West Africa. Enslaved Africans carried the “banjar” and its music to North America by way of the Caribbean. ... " https://bittersoutherner.com/history-of-the-banjo/

If Brad Paisley came out with a song about rolling on dubs, would that make it R&B?

Hank Williams is spinning in his grave...

Bill Withers' music was as country as it gets but he was only allowed the label of "soul." Does anyone remember the country song, "Good Night Irene?" It was written and performed by Huddie Ledbetter, AKA Leadbelly. Aside from Charlie pride, country music has historically been reserved by the powers that be for "white" musicians only. This "controversy" shows the nuts and bolts of that brand of segregation.

This reminds me of the nonsense surrounding the discussions about the Pointer Sisters release of their fantastic recording of Fairytale in 1974. Why not just appreciate the music and stop attaching some silly label as to is it country or hip hop. Clearly Lil Nas X was influenced by country music as well as some current country artists are influenced by hip hop. The only thing that matters is that fans of either genre enjoy it regardless of where it's listed in Billboard.

Strip away the musical backdrop and what do you have left in either genre? Partying. Women troubles. Some gambling. Pride in roots. Crime ("I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die").

What's with this rigid categorizing that Americans seem so fond of these days, whether it is identity politics or pop music? Anybody remember the "Top 40" R&R charts of the 50s and 60s? In addition to Elvis and the Del Vikings and Buddy Holley and the Shirelles, there were the likes of Roger Miller, Kyu Sakomoto, Floyd Cramer, Walter Brennan, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, Acker Bilk and Frank Sinatra, to name a few genre benders. We thought it was all good, and the need to argue about how to classify or whether it was "cultural appropriation" was unheard of.

I say let hiphop artists like Lil Nas X have the rotted corpse of "country" if they want it. These days, most music resembling actual country music is usually put under the "Americana" umbrella anyways, along with an amalgam of talented roots rock and folk musicians. Modern "country" by sharp contrast is just a marketing label. It's like buying a sweatshirt that says "Pink" on it; it could be made anywhere by anyone and be of the lowest quality imaginable, it just has a focus-group-tested label on it that draws the gullible like flies.

Wait, wait, wait... Has Billboard listened to any of the white artists currently making "country" music hits? When white artists rap in a "country" music song its totally fine, but when a black artist raps in a country music song he is kicked out?

Now that we have a President that has made it "OK to be racist", we are finding out how many of our institutions and fellow citizens are, in fact, racist. This information may be disturbing to many of us but it is probably good for us all to understand just how prevalent racism is and which populations and institutions remain racist.

Love to see somebody defending this nonsense offer a good, clear, plain def of “country music.”

If I had been listening to country music and this "song" came on, I'd shut it off.

What I like about "Old Town Road" is the imagination it took took to cross over, to move from hiphop to something more country. Good work ...

Appropriate genre is in the ear of the beholder I guess. If it was accepted by listeners when it was on Billboard's country chart then they should not claim some authority to remove it. For me personally the song and the video are not a winner in any category and I actually find it quite lame but I support freedom of choice. The music industry is filled with rebels without a cause, many with silly invented names with little to no musical talent.

Does adding Hannah Montana's dad to a hiphop track make it "country"? Let me answer that question with a question; Would adding a small Lil Nas X voice-over to a pre-recorded Slayer song make it hip hop?

I don't see in the article any explanation of what Billy Ray Cyrus song was bounced from the country chart. Sure, I can look it up, but the reporting should be written better.

Not country enough? Shoot, most country music today isn't country enough. Times change and music evolves. How is Billboard still a thing anyway? It's been around longer than I have, and it shows.

While I hate gatekeepers, in music or elsewhere, it doesn’t sound like any country song I ever heard, but then again I don’t listen to, nor care for most country music. I like this song well enough, but the video is the more clever part for me. Combining auto tune and electronic beats with the particular lyrics and the animated western scenes was a shrewd move. I look forward to seeing his future work.

If the soul-free music of Justin Timberlake can be considered R&B, then Billboard needs to explain in depth why Old Town Road is not a country song. The current reasoning does not make sense because the factors said to be lacking are actually in the song. Try again. Who knows maybe it is time to scrap all of these genre-specific charts and just go back to one universal chart. Songs compete with all other songs and they make it or they don't. Simple as pie. I am not a fan of what is currently considered "country music" but I like this song and the remix. The guitar (banjo?) in the original song reminds me of the old recordings of black music featuring Uncle John Scruggs and others.

Let's all remember that "modern country" sounds exactly like 80's pop music.... and not in a good way.

From what I heard when listening to this song, it came across as being about as country as it did heavy metal.

One would argue that country music is a historically Black Genre and would be hard pressed to separate country's roots from the likes of DeFord Bailey and the Senegambian Banjo. It's quite telling that so many of the comments here are quick to protect the image of country music as some completely disparate institution yet there's hardly the same energy when the topic is an artist like say, Post Malone on the Hip Hop 100.

Eeh, I don't know. I'm not an expert on country music by any means, but even after listening to a couple of the songs linked in the article that this article links to about contemporary pop country embracing characteristics of broader pop music (both of which I would have called, if asked, country songs), I'm not sure what makes Old Town Road a country song. I was not sure at all for the first 25 seconds or so, but once the beat kicks in, it just sounds like a hip hop song with horses and a mock inflection. It's not bad at all. I'm just not sure what makes it a country song.

No cries of cultural appropriation from the PC police and social justice crowd? BTW- the cowboy image is Nashville’s creation and has little to do with real country music.

About a decade ago I was involved with a woman who was a country music fan. After listening to a lot of country radio and watching MANY country awards shows (what other music genre has as many?) I observed that modern country music felt like pop music for "whites only." That comment was not well received, but it feels even more accurate now, especially after news like this.