Lil Nas X has been on top of the world since his record-breaking hit "Old Town Road" took over the music charts after it was released in December.
The rap-country superstar is celebrating a new feat now that the single has spent a record 17 weeks at number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The previous record was 16 weeks and Lil Nas X has been vocal about urging his fans to keep the song at number 1.
.@LilNasX and @billyraycyrus' "Old Town Road" is now the longest running #1 hit in Hot 100 history (17 weeks).
— chart data (@chartdata) July 29, 2019
The 20-year-old wrote a long, emoji-filled Instagram post commemorating the feat and thanking all of his fans for endlessly streaming the song.
"Last year in October as a struggling artist starting to lose faith in what I could be, I went looking for beats on YouTube. I remember clicking on so many generic sounding beats trying to find the right one for me. When suddenly I came across a country-trap sounding masterpiece. I immediately knew i would make something special out of it!" he wrote.
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— nope (@LilNasX) July 29, 2019
"My sister told me I had little time left before I had to leave her house after being there for months promoting my music online and not helping her out much. I was so upset! I used it as motivation for the song! I jokingly/seriously saw myself as a loner cowboy needing to run away from it all! I went out on my sister’s back porch and listened to the beat over & over . &over !! then it came to me!! In my best singing voice I sung, 'Yeahhh I'm gonna take my horse to the old town road, I'm gonna ride til I can't no more!."
He spoke further about where he was when he wrote the song and how the song's success has changed his life.
"I loved it already! I started to work on it every single day. It needed to be funny, it needed to be catchy, it needed to be hip hop, it needed to be country, & it needed to be short!! By the time i was finished setting it up I was out of my sister’s crib and at my brothers place," he said.
'Old Town Road' originally made it to number 1 on the Billboard charts in March after chart managers removed it from the Country Music charts. The decision caused a huge backlash from the music community and helped popularize the song even more.
It was given an extra boost when country music legend Billy Ray Cyrus hopped on the remix. Lil Nas X has since released a music video for the track and a number of remixes to keep it popular across the globe.
The song got so popular that it easily broke Billboard's one-week streaming record, held by Drake's "In My Feelings" with 143 million streams in April. The song has even topped the charts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Lil Nas X released an EP, titled 7 in June that includes the chart-topping hit.
The previous 16-week record was held by both Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day" as well as "Despacito" by Luis Fonis, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber.
"This song has changed my life and the way I see the world around me in less than a year. Thank you to every single person who has been apart of this journey," he said in his Instagram post.
"As I said before, it’s just the beginning!"
