old town road

 

Read this Vox feature and podcast transcript on Lil Nas X and Old Town Road. Make sure you read the whole thing - including the podcast transcript - then answer the following questions: 

1) What is the big debate regarding Old Town Road and genre?

Many western genre stations and big western music companies believe that old town road shouldnt be listed as a western genre music due to all of its hip hop/rap conventions

2) What do you learn about the background of Lil Nas X and Old Town Road from the podcast transcript?

He is a 20-year-old rapper from Atlanta. His real name is Montero Hill, despite the fact that he has been going by the moniker "Lil Nas X" for a while. He also registered for SoundCloud last year, like many other people. In December of the same year, he also released the song "Old Town Road."He bought a beat that had a country-sounding instrumental in it. And he claimed that he was experiencing extreme loneliness at home, much like a cowboy experiencing extreme loneliness, and that led him to decide to incorporate that feeling with the 'twangy' beat he had bought.

3) What is the Yeehaw agenda?

The yeehaw agenda is the movement to bring recognition to the black cowboys which in western movies were written off despite the fact that around 30% of cowboys were in fact black.

4) How did the story become a debate about race in America?

because a very powerful, significant organisation stealthily takes down a song by a black musician in America who is charting in a largely white industry. Billboard was anticipated to respond when Genius contacted them with, "Oh no, it has nothing to do with his race, it has everything to do with the song and the lack of country elements in it." It immediately sparked debate, particularly among Twitter users of colour.

5) How does Charlie Harding sum up the whole thing in the final part of the podcast transcript?

'You know, Lil Nas X posted “Old Town Road” on SoundCloud. He actually in the metadata said it was a country song. So there’s a question about who gets to be the gatekeeper of declaring what genre you are. Really, I think we’re just seeing some casual or not-so-casual racism about who is and what isn’t country. I think that this gets much more complicated when we actually look at the sounds of contemporary country music — which doesn’t conform to that original classification of you have to have banjos and a certain sound or a certain twang, because there’s lots of contemporary music which is actually equally pulling from hip hop sounds, trap beats, 808s, all this and that'

Now read this Salon feature on Lil Nas X and LGBTQ+ identity. Answer the following questions:

1) How did Lil Nas X announce his sexuality on social media?

In a series of tweets, he exhorted followers to listen to his song "c7osure," which is about telling the truth about secrets and loving oneself. He punctuated the tweet with a rainbow emoji and then posted the cover art for his new EP "7," which features him riding a horse towards a building that is illuminated with rainbow lights while wearing a cowboy hat.

2) Why does the article describe Old Town Road as 'genre-blurring'? 

'Lil Nas X is a genre-defying artist whose breakthrough hit incorporated both country and hip hop sounds and fans, therefore his open admission of being gay affects both genres.'

3) How has country music demonstrated the social change taking place in American culture and society? 

In country music, 2014 was a significant year for LGBTQ news. A national social and political transition was followed by a trend of increasing acceptance and support. A total of 70% of Americans lived in the states that had legalised same-sex unions as of 2014. After that, in 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated all state bans, establishing marriage equality as the rule of law. 

Old Town Road textual analysis

Watch the video again and answer the following questions. Use your notes from our in-class analysis to help you:

1) How is the narrative features used in the music video? Apply narrative theory here.

I feel as though Roland Barthes cultural theory was a big part of this music videos as there were conventions which represented culture heavily in this music video through using an almost all black cast in order to represen the yee haw movement by introducing them as cowboys, they used this to clas as when they went to the future and entered the 'cowboy club' they were all white to emphasise the effects of the yee haw movement.

2) What examples of genre conventions and intertextuality can you find in the video?

the wormhole between the past to the present is the biggest use of intertextuality in the whole of the music video as i feel like is the key point of the video that brings the whole music video together through mixing conventions of the old western genre and the modern hip hop genre.

3) How are technical codes used to create meanings in the video? Analyse camerawork, editing and mise-en-scene and make specific reference to moments in the video.

mise en scene has been used alot ranging from the over-the-top cowboy costumes, the location of shooting in especially the western environment. The use of longshots and shot reverse shots in order to make the scenes feel like typical western standoffs.

4) How are representations of race and ethnicity constructed in the video?

i feel like in this music video, racial stereotypes have been subverted. Typically in constructed media, Black people are portrayed to be the 'villains and white people are often chosen as the hero however here, everyone in the future who is black is positively portrayed and in the past the white father and daughters are portrayed as the villains for shooting our protagonist.

5) What other representations can you find in the video? You may wish to comment on gender, sexuality or America/American culture. 

Lil Nas X tweeting that he thought he made his sexuality “very obvious” through costuming etc he builds this idea around his sexuality that the audience can infer for example the pink suit in the music video.