Lil Nas X, 20 years old, and born in Atlanta, dropped out of college and was sleeping on his sister’s couch while making music on Soundcloud. Lil Nas X bought a beat for $30 and in December 2018, he turned it into a Billboard record breaking song. “Old Town Road” was released by Columbia on April 5th 2019. Today the song has 272,897,760 views on Youtube and Lil Nas X has a networth of about $2 Million. Breaking Billboard records, “Old Town Road” held the #1 spot for 19 weeks straight, bumping out Drake, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and many more. The song even made it on 3 country music charts at the same time but was “silently” removed because Country Billboards said it didn’t have enough country music elements. Catching the attention of Billy Ray Cyrus, he reached out to Lil Nas X and together they collabed to make a Remix of “Old Town Road”.

Some believe Lil Nas X is breaking “cultural boundaries”. While some people say “Old Town Road” is not a country music song, others beg to differ. When Billy Ray Cyrus spoke out about the song being removed from charts, that caught the attention of other country artists, Pop artists and fans. 

Pop artist Sir Ski Mask the Slump God spoke out saying that it was “discrimination at its finest”. 

Country singer Darius Rucker said that being a African American country artist himself, he has faced a lot of situations where there were people not wanting to listen to his music because of the color of his skin and the genre of the music he was singing. Even though Billboard said that the color of Lil Nas X’s skin had nothing to do with their decision, people were still furious. Fans were furious enough to threaten to boycott Wrangler Jeans, the business that had partnered with the artist to give him his own clothes line made from his song lyrics “Wrangler on my booty”. The clothes line became very popular very quick but fans aren’t happy over the fact that Wrangler Jeans typically promotes clothes for cowboys and farmers. 

Society’s stereotypes did not stop Lil Nas X. He continues to make “Old Town Road” more and more popular by collaborating with rapper Young Thug and yodelling boy Mason Ramsey to make another remix. In June of 2019 Lil Nas X dropped another hit song, “Panini”, standing at No. 16 on Billboards. This is a confirmation that Lil Nas X is not a one hit wonder artist. Having two big hit songs out, Lil Nas X’s earlier music was being discovered such as his collaboration with Cardi B, “Rodeo”. While “Panini” is not on the countryside as “Old Town Road”, and more on the Pop side, “Rodeo”, with Cardi B does a close 50-50 mashup of country and pop.

Fans were curious  about Lil Nas X’s sexuality after “Old Town Road” so he made many hints to uncover his sexuality. First he hints towards his EP(extended play) debut song “C7osure” and focuses on the line “Ain’t no more actin’, man that forecast say I should just let me grow this is what I gotta do, can’t be regrettin’ when I’m old.” 

Later, on the last day of Pride Month, he posted a picture of his new album cover, with him sitting on a horse looking up at a set of buildings and the moon  as a spotlight on him. One of the buildings was also marked with the rainbow, representing the pride flag. He said “[I] thought I made it obvious”. This statement caught the attention of many people. The amount of support he received was crazy, but there was hate that he received too. As usual social media was a tremendous source of hate, and Lil Nas X told the press that he knows who listens to his music and those people don’t accept homosexuality. 

Growing up, Lil Nas X was taught that homosexuality was not okay, so in a way he understood where they were coming from. Originally he was not intending to come out, but he said he “felt in a way pushed by the universe”. It didn’t take long before the hate got to Lil Nas  X and he posted a tweet on Twitter saying “next [person] to say something offensive to me getting kissed”. By August 2019, the topic began to fade.

Lil Nas X is inspiring younger generations today because of the many things he has done in the last 9 months that can show teens that you can do what you want to do and there will be problems and hate but if you let it overcome you then it won’t get better. People may disagree and disapprove but if you’re passionate about what you’re doing then go and do it because the amount of people who support you and agree with you will easily out number the haters.