Lil Nas X turned Old Town Road into a record-breaking hit by gaming TikTok virality, exploiting Billboard's genre rules, and dropping strategic remixes. He went from struggling to dominating the charts for weeks.
The marketing genius of Lil NAS X Part 2. Inspired by Old Town Road's success on Twitter, it spread to TikTok and then onto Billboard's country music charts. Yes, the country music charts. Nas listed it as a country song, aware that the charts were less competitive. One week later, Billboard removed it for not being a country song. Ironically, this was the best thing that could have possibly happened. Billboard's decision turned Old Town Road into a national talking point, and two weeks later, it was number one. Nas wasn't stopping. He began lining up remixes with some of music's biggest stars. Billboard has a loophole whereby remix plays count towards the original song's chart placement. With every remix, millions more streams poured in and Old Town Road became impossible to budge. Seventeen weeks later, he broke Mariah Carey's record for the most consecutive weeks at number one. It's easy to forget. Quiet. What an extraordinary achievement this is. Five months earlier, Nas was a college dropout sleeping on his sister's couch with a negative balance in his Wells Fargo account. Follow for more videos like this.
