Lil Nas X and the Power of Media

This writing sample examines how media power relates to Lil Nas X transcending musical genres with his 2019 hit "Old Town Road."

Lil Nas X's song "Old Town Road" took the world by storm in the summer of 2019. The record-breaking piece that combines the hip hop and country music genre, written and performed by a black gay man, is an excellent media text to examine how media power relates to identity, race, and popular culture.

Lil Nas X created a blockbuster hit that transcended genres and used the power of digital culture to help it reach a global audience. The song gained traction on the social media app TikTok and its popularity there accumulated into the recording of the most well-known iteration of the song, which was released in April 2019 and included country star Billy Ray Cyrus on the track.

The song was met with many controversies that all circulated individuals being unsupportive of the idea of a gay black man taking the country music industry by storm. One specific dispute involved Billboard removing the song from its country charts while still keeping it on the hip hop charts.

Another controversy occurred regarding Lil Nas X's collaboration with the western clothing and jeans brand Wrangler. Racist comments and calls to boycott the brand ensued following the release of the partnership. The song and Lil Nas X's popularity can be linked to the artist's clever use of social media and meme culture to promote his music to pop culture status. 

There is a lot to unpack when looking at the implications of race and identity in the popularity of the song "Old Town Road." To start, the writer and performer of the song Lil Nas X because of his identity, lacks power thanks to the hegemonic tendencies of both music genres he is trying to infiltrate.

Country music and hip hop are two genres that don't traditionally overlap, and the culture of the two genres has strong identities based on race. Hip hop music is dominated by black male musicians and females who are breaking into the genre, both of whom embrace their black identity and culture. Males have long dominated country music like hip hop, but in this case, white males singing about their culture, which is primarily drawn from southern and midwestern culture.

Gatekeepers of both music genres have reasons they do not want Lil Nas X going against their highly mediated forms. A black gay male struggles to find power in both of these industries; however, Lil Nas X transcended both genres and created a hit song that, despite the backlash, became a pop-culture staple in the summer of 2019.  

Overall, Lil Nas X's ability to resist those with power and ideologies that went against the notion of him breaking into these various media cultures was thanks to his use of digital media. Digital media has allowed minorities to take power from dominant cultures because of the increased access and understanding of different media representations. Lil Nas X used social media to promote his music and, through apps like TikTok, created an easily spread meme, allowing him to go past the culture industry's gatekeepers to create a pop culture trend.

Lil Nas X provided people with similar identities representation in these two different music genres through his song. "Old Town Road" is a media text that's popularity goes along with Stuart Hall's notion of popular culture, which considers the constant struggle between stakeholders in the media culture. This continuous negotiation between cultures to create popular culture and digital media allowed "Old Town Road" to be a media text that promoted a black gay man to be represented in two previously very traditional parts of the media culture.