Hit Parade: Ride til I Cant No More Edition Part 2
b'When it crash-landed on the charts in 2019, Lil Nas X\\u2019s \\u201cOld Town Road\\u201d felt new and old at the same time: a savvy, TikTok-fueled viral hit that summarized a century of cross-cultural collisions between R&B, rap and country. It was also unexpectedly huge\\u2014a record 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100\\u2014and controversial, as Billboard magazine pulled the song from its Hot Country Songs chart, prompting a reckoning on race and the very definition of country music.\\n\\n\\u201cOld Town Road\\u201d wasn\\u2019t just a reckoning\\u2014it was a culmination. As a hard-to-categorize hit, it called back to cross-genre experiments by everyone from Ray Charles and the Rappin\\u2019 Duke to Bubba Sparxxx and even Jason Aldean. As a viral smash, its antecedents date back to \\u201cThe Twist,\\u201d right through \\u201cCrank That (Soulja Boy)\\u201d and \\u201cHarlem Shake.\\u201d\\nIn honor of his new book Old Town Road (now in bookstores!) join Chris Molanphy as he walks through the many predecessors to \\u201cOld Town Road\\u201d and explains why can\\u2019t nobody tell Lil Nas X nothin\\u2019.\\n\\nPodcast production by Kevin Bendis.\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'