Lil Nas X officially has the longest running number 1 single in Billboard Hot 100’s history with ‘Old Town Road’.
Billboard announced today that the Country Hip-Hop record is ruling the Hot 100 chart for a record 17th week. With that, it broke two songs’ record which earlier held the feat for 16 weeks: Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s ‘One Sweet Day‘ from 1995, and ‘Despacito‘ by Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber from 2017.
‘Old Town Road’ first blew up on video-sharing app TikTok, where people used the track as part of a viral dance challenge. Before that, it gained traction on Soundcloud with the help of Lil Nas’ previous Twitter account where he used to stan Nicki Minaj. It then got some major news coverage back in March when Billboard declared it ineligible for its Country chart. The controversial ruling led to a smash remix with Billy Ray Cyrus. The remix’s streams were added to the original as Billboard combines streams, downloads and radio spins in its chart calculations when the remix maintains the core elements of the original song.
Since then, Nas X has issued two more remixes — one with Mason Ramsey & Young Thug and another named ‘Seoul Town Road‘ with an appearance by RM of the K-pop group BTS.