Old Town New Road

How 20-year-old Upstart Lil Nas X Used The Internet To Beat Nashville At Its Own Game

- Andrew R.Chow

LIL NAS X IS GETTING BORED. AT A BOWLING ALLEY in midtown Manhattan, he plays a giant Connect 4, then ping-pong and then, even as he checks and rechecks his phone, he races back and forth between two lanes, pins clattering in surround sound as he bowls one spare after another.

But for the 20-year-old rapper, singer and songwriter— who less than a year ago was a college dropout sleeping on his sister’s floor—second best gets boring, and fast. On his next turn, in a whirl of goofy energy, he spins around, pointing his black Air Jordans away from the pins, and flicks the ball backward down the hardwood lane. Rather than sinking into the gutter, the ball rolls perfectly down the center, knocking down all 10. He collapses onto the floor, yelping and pumping his fists.

It’s tempting to read this moment as a perfect metaphor for Lil Nas’ career: an amateur flings something into the universe, only to luck into a massive win. When his debut single, “Old Town Road,” exploded online early this year and began climbing the charts, industry prognosticators anticipated a quick rise and fall.

Four months later, “Old Town Road” has defied all expectations. It’s now the longest-running No. 1 song in history, having occupied the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 19 weeks, blocking new singles from Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran, and dethroning the previous record holders, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s 1995 hit “One Sweet Day” and Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber’s 2017 single “Despacito.” It’s been streamed more than a billion times on Spotify alone. As Lil Nas himself put it on Twitter: “It’s crazy how any baby born after march has not lived in a world where old town road wasn’t number 1.”