What ain’t country about ‘Old Town Road’?
Broke, living at his sister’s house, fighting with his parents after quitting college, 19-year-old Montero Hill of Atlanta put his angst into a song.
The result, “Old Town Road,” is a head-bopping mashup of banjo twangs and cowhand motifs, clocking in at under two minutes. There’s a real sense of longing and comeuppance, but with some meme-ready lines – like “horse” rhymed with “Porsche.”
Known now to the world as Lil Nas X, Mr. Hill wrote what he called “both” a country song and a hip-hop – “country trap,” as his label, Columbia, put it. Goosed by his media savvy on platforms like TikTok, the song broke onto the Billboard
