Old town road

• Montero Lamar Hill was living in his sister's house in Atlanta when he bought a track for $30 on Beat Stars and scribbled down some meme-worthy lyrics. He uploaded "Old Town Road" in December 2018 and spent the next few months using different social media channels to promote the song. After millions of streams, yeehaw memes, countless awards, and a record-breaking nineteen weeks at the top of the American charts, Lil Nas X became "an internationally recognized phenomenon".
• We are going to explore the cultural and economic context behind the musician's rise to power and analyse the music video's representations of race and gender. Hopefully, we can gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of how media texts construct meaning and communicate important ideologies to the audience.
• The Official Movie


  The focus is on the "Official Movie" which was released in May 2019. Directed by the American filmmaker Calmatic, the remix featured Billy Ray Cyrus with guest appearances from Chris Rock as the sheriff and his flabbergasted deputy HaHa Davis. Keep an eye out for Young Kio as the stunned mechanic.
• Genre


  Filmmakers are able to encode messages through the "interplay" of dialogue, gestures, costumes, sets, lighting techniques, camera shots and movement, non-diegetic sound, editing, and many other important elements. Genres are specific combinations of codes being reused and reworked into lots of films.
• Westerns


  • Normally follow the stories of drifters, cowboys, and outlaws struggling to survive in the desolate and cruel deserts of America's "Wild West" in the 19th century. Armed with revolvers and wearing their Stetson hats, the protagonists often connoted social order and power over nature. Inevitably, the narrative ended with a duel between quick-drawing gunslingers – a battle between good and evil.
• "Old Town Road" repeats well-worn genre tropes, but Lil Nas X plays with the conventions to create his own vision.
• Musical Genres


  When Lil Nas X uploaded the original track to SoundCloud, he selected "country" from the list of genres available in the drop-down menu. These tags can help musicians connect with users who are interested in discovering the latest tunes in a particular genre. In fact, "Old Town Road" remains the most popular country music song on SoundCloud.
• Billboard disqualified "Old Town Road" from their Hot Country Songs chart because the magazine decided the song did not actually fit the genre. In a statement to Rolling Stone Magazine, they said: "While Old Town Road incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today's country music".
• Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road"

  • Raps about the "old town", the harsh and dangerous "valley", horse riding, bull riding, cowboy hat and jeans. There is the inevitable reference to a broken relationship with the lines "cheated on my baby" and "you can go and ask her". The chorus has a tremendous sense of defiance and a wonderful spirit of independence: "I'm gonna take my horse to the old town road / I'm gonna ride 'til I can't no more".