Introduction

Old Town Road by Lil Nas X was taken off the country music charts. The decision that Billboard was at pains to say was nothing at all to do with his race. If you have to go to great lengths to say that the thing you're doing isn't racist, it's probably racist. genre labels have always been about race and about policing racial boundaries in the US. In the 1950s just like today, there were black people who wanted to make country music. But in the 1950s, one term for the music those people were making was called rock and roll.