¹ History of the song from Joe Coscarelli, “How Lil Nas X Took ‘Old Town Road’ from TikTok Meme to No. 1—Diary of a Song,” New York Times, video published on YouTube on May 9, 2019, https://youtu.be/ptKqFafZgCk.

² For examples of the #YeehawChallenge, see Blissful Mind, “Old Town Road (Tik Tok Compilation),” video published on YouTube on February 26, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxwpKKK3P4s.

³ Elias Leight, “Lil Nas X's ‘Old Town Road’ was a Country Hit. Then Country Changed Its Mind,” Rolling Stone, March 26, 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/lil-nas-x-old-town-road-810844/.

⁴ Rodney Carmichael, “Wrangler on His Booty: Lil Nas X on the Making and the Magic of ‘Old Town Road,’” NPR, April 10, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/711167412/wrangler-on-his-booty-lil-nas-x-on-the-making-and-the-magic-of-old-town-road.

⁵ For more on the history of race and genre in commercial music, see Miller, Karl Hagstrom, Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ A contemporary example outside of country music is folk artist Rhiannon Giddens, who has emerged as a leading voice reviving the history of black artists in American folk music. Her most recent project, a collaboration with three other black woman folk musicians, was released by Smithsonian Folkways in early 2019. Our Native Daughters, Songs of Our Native Daughters, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW40232, 2019. For more on Rhiannon Giddens, see John Jeremiah Sullivan, “Rhiannon Giddens and What Folk Music Means,” New Yorker, May 13, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/20/rhiannon-giddens-and-what-folk-music-means.

⁷ Joseph Hudak, “Beyoncé's Country Song ‘Daddy Lessons’ Rejected by Grammys,” Rolling Stone, December 8, 2016.

⁸ Billboard updated its methodology in 2012 to begin excluding out-of-genre songs from the Hot charts for each genre and to move away from relying on genre-specific radio stations for play counts. Hot Latin Songs was restricted to Spanish-language songs, but Latin Pop remained open to all songs played on Latin Pop stations. Billboard Staff, “Billboard Shakes Up Genre Charts With New Methodology,” Hollywood Reporter, October 11, 2012, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/billboard-shakes-up-genre-charts-378450.

⁹ Jenna Amatulli, “Arya's White Horse Scene Sparked ‘Old Town Road’ Memes,” Huffington Post, May 13, 2019, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/game-of-thrones-arya-white-horse_n_5cd986fde4b0b0e70ab38e19.

¹⁰ Bri Malandro runs an Instagram account, “theyeehawagenda,” which features photos of the trend. Taylor Crumpton, “A Brief History of the YeeHaw Agenda,” Afropunk, March 12, 2019, https://afropunk.com/2019/03/black-cowboys-yeehaw-agenda/.

¹¹ For a discussion of social media, black music, and racism, see Gaunt, Kyra D., “YouTube, Bad Bitches, and an M.I.C. (Mom-in-Chief): On the Digital Seduction of Black Girls in Participatory Hip-Hop Spaces,” in The Hip Hop and Obama Reader, ed. Gosa, Travis L. and Nielson, Erik (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015): 207–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.