The Wild and Accidental Way ‘Old Town Road’ Was Created
“Old Town Road” wasn’t born in a studio or planned by a label. It started with a beat that a young producer casually uploaded online, where Lil Nas X stumbled upon it while scrolling. What followed was pure chance: a viral meme, a genre mix no one expected, and a song that would break records for 19 straight weeks. Its rise wasn’t calculated; it was the perfect storm of internet culture and instinct
The Beat That Shouldn’t Have Been
Image via Canva/Syda Productions
In mid-2018, Dutch producer YoungKio (real name Kiowa Roukema) sat in his bedroom outside Amsterdam and hacked together a beat. He sampled the industrial rock track “34 Ghosts IV” by Nine Inch Nails, chopped it up, looped it over trap drums, and nearly didn’t upload it because he felt the beat was different and wasn’t going to do anything.
Later that year, an Atlanta rapper and meme-savvy artist named Lil Nas X (Montero Lamar Hill) bought that same beat for around $30 and recorded the entire track in a single day. It wasn’t backed by a label or a marketing budget, just ambition and internet instincts.
Cowboy Hats, Memes, and Chart Controversy
Lil Nas X never set out to make a traditional country hit. He uploaded “Old Town Road” to SoundCloud and YouTube, tagging it with playful labels like #countrytrap and #hickhop. It might have stayed unnoticed if not for TikTok, where users turned its catchy hook into the “Yeehaw Challenge.”
One jump cut swapped everyday clothes for cowboy hats and boots, and soon the meme was everywhere. The trend spread across platforms, sending streams soaring and turning “Old Town Road” into an online phenomenon no one could escape.
Then came the chart drama. When “Old Town Road” began climbing Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart in early 2019, it was suddenly removed. Billboard claimed it “didn’t embrace enough elements of today’s country music.” The decision sparked outrage and debates about race, genre, and gatekeeping. Instead of fading, the controversy sent the song into overdrive — and Lil Nas X leaned into the cowboy image even harder, turning rejection into his biggest breakthrough.
A Remix Tips the Scale
Just weeks later, country veteran Billy Ray Cyrus jumped on a remix. His twangy verse and laid-back delivery bridged two generations and gave the track even more legitimacy. The remix shot Old Town Road straight to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, where it stayed for a record-breaking 19 weeks. What began as a $30 beat from a teenager in the Netherlands had now become a global hit credited to a rapper, a rock band, and a country icon.
Looking back, it’s clear that none of this was supposed to happen the way it did. YoungKio didn’t plan for a viral hit when he uploaded that experimental beat. Lil Nas X didn’t expect the song to blow up when he tagged it on SoundCloud. Yet, a few key shifts in culture and technology made this wild chain of events possible.
Online beat marketplaces gave independent producers access to artists around the world. Social media turned songs into interactive experiences instead of passive listening. And the blurred boundaries between genres created a space where something as unusual as country-trap could thrive. Old Town Road was legit built by chaos, memes, and perfect timing.