Lil Nas X

Lil Nas X is the artist on this list whose longevity seems the most unpredictable, but even if his 21-million-views-and-counting hit “Old Town Road (I Got The Horses In The Back)” is a flash in the pan, this song — and the story surrounding it — will have undoubtedly defined 2019. The Atlanta rapper released the ten-song Nasarati EP last year and it’s a perfectly fine collection of modern trap songs, but the minute and 50 seconds that make up the country-rap song “Old Town Road” is the reason no one can stop talking about him. Over a trap beat and a banjo line (sampled from Nine Inch Nails’ “34 Ghosts IV”), Lil Nas X sings in a Southern twang about cowboy life, and he released the song with a visualizer made up of flips from wild wild west video game Red Dead Redemption 2. The song quickly became a basis for a meme on the Vine-like app TikTok, where people film themselves listening to the song, and as soon as the beat drops, the shot changes and they’re dancing and decked out in cowboy gear. (If you’d rather just see it for yourself, here’s a compilation video.) It’s all happening along with the rise of the Yeehaw Agenda, but unlike the aforementioned DaBaby who just dresses like a cowboy, “Old Town Road” actually cracked Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart (as well as the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and the Hot 100). But then, Billboard controversially removed the song, issuing a statement to Rolling Stone saying that the song “does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.” This led to widespread accusations that Billboard made the choice because of Lil Nas X’s race, not because of the sound of his music. White country singers (like Florida Georgia Line, who co-signed Lil Nas X) have incorporated rapping into their songs without getting removed from the country chart, and as we speak, Post Malone — a white artist who collaborated with Aerosmith and Red Hot Chili Peppers — currently occupies the top two slots on Billboard‘s Hot Rap Songs chart with songs that mostly feature him singing. It’s not hard to see why it seems very much like a race issue. Lil Nas X himself avoided the topic when TIME asked him about it, but he did feel strongly that it belonged on the country chart. “The song is country trap. It’s not one, it’s not the other. It’s both. It should be on both,” he said. The narrative surrounding “Old Town Road” is perhaps even bigger than “Old Town Road” itself, but at the end of the day, this all started because it’s such a likable song. You might be cynical that a meme turned it into a hit, but memes also turned “Black Beatles,” “Bad and Boujee,” and “In My Feelings” into hits too. Those songs outlasted their memes because they were good, and “Old Town Road” is good too. It’ll be interesting to see if lightning will strike twice for Lil Nas X, but even if it doesn’t, he’s done a lot of good already. He helped start a much-needed conversation about how we perceive race and music in 2019, and he created a catchy fucking song in the process.