Lil Nas X has spoken out on ‘Old Town Road’ being banned from a US country chart – and insists he’s “happy” for Beyonce after her record-breaking success with country chart-topper ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’.
Despite the 25-year-old trap star holding the title for the longest-running Billboard Hot 100 chart hit with the 2019 viral country-trap tune – the remix of which features country music legend Billy Ray Cyrus – Nas X’s tune was removed from Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, because it did “not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current form.”
Whilst the American charts giant insisted this had nothing to do with race, it certainly raised some eyebrows.
The singer hasn’t been put off, however, telling the BBC, he’s been “trying out some country [sounds] here and there over the last couple of years.”
He added: “But I wish this would have happened for me. I wasn’t even able to experience this.”
After praising 42-year-old idol Beyonce’s success with her country tune from ‘Cowboy Carter’, he insisted: “I want to feel connected to it and not force it.”
At the time, Cyrus told him to take it in his stride and see the removal as a “compliment”.
He posted to then-Twitter (X): “@LilNasX Been watching everything going on with OTR. When I got thrown off the charts, Waylon Jennings said to me “Take this as a compliment” means you’re doing something great! Only Outlaws are outlawed. Welcome to the club! (sic)”
Meanwhile, Nas X has released the candid documentary, ‘Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero’, on digital platforms and made it available to rent, which “follows the Grammy-winning and trailblazing, rapper, singer, songwriter, Lil Nas X, over 60 days as he embarks on his first ever tour across North America on his debut album tour Long Live Montero.”
And the ‘Industry Baby’ star – whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill – has confessed he felt like an “impostor” on the road.
He explained: “In rehearsal it didn’t feel like the real thing yet. I felt like I was going out there and putting on my best impression of a person [on tour].
“I’d [ask myself], ‘What am I doing up here? This doesn’t feel right’. It wasn’t like talking to people online. There were actual human beings in front of me. It was weird.”