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  • Hey.

  • What’s going on?”

  • Everything’s going on.”

  • Everything is going on.

  • Mr. Cyrus, how are you?”

  • “I’m doing good, Joe.

  • How you doing?”

  • Yo, what’s up?”

  • “I like your robe.”

  • Thanks.”

  • Yeah, I always make beats in this.”

  • Play the number one song in the world.”

  • “O.K. Let’s hear 'Old Town Road' by Lil Nas X.

  • (SINGING) I got the horses in the back.

  • Horse tack is attached.

  • Hat is matte black.

  • Got the boots that’s black to match.”

  • No!

  • No!”

  • So you were just, like, throwing stuff up

  • on SoundCloud that you recorded in your bedroom?”

  • Either in the closet of my bedroom,

  • or the closet in my grandma’s house.

  • Like, making studios out of those.”

  • Well, I’m from the Netherlands.

  • I live in a small town next to Amsterdam.

  • This is where I make my beats.

  • It’s just, like, a desk with two monitors,

  • and I’m just selling my beats online.

  • I can make quality beats really fast.

  • So I can, like, put out, like, 10 a day, you know?”

  • [music]

  • Banjos, you know?

  • It really just hits me.

  • That’s why I made the track.”

  • Who wrote the sample?”

  • It was Nine Inch Nails.”

  • [music]

  • But I had never heard of Nine Inch Nails before.

  • But they havethey make some really good music, you know?”

  • “I always get my beats, like, from YouTube.

  • I would just go through, like, 100 beats.”

  • It’s really just luck that people just find your stuff,

  • you know?

  • It’s really luck.”

  • “I found the beat on, like, Halloween night.

  • The beat was just speaking to me, you know?

  • I was, like, this song’s gonna be great.”

  • Did you conceive of the song as a country rap song?”

  • Country trap.

  • But, like, if I had to choose which one it’s more

  • leaning towards, it would definitely be country.

  • I got the horses in the back.

  • Horse tack is attached.

  • Hat is matte black.

  • Got the boots that’s black to match.

  • I knew 'Old Town Road' had to have

  • some kind of funny lyrics, just

  • to keep people entertained.

  • Cowboy hat from Gucci.

  • Wrangler on my booty.”

  • Did you have a job at the time?

  • Were you working?”

  • No, I was not working.

  • Like, I was pushing my music through the internet, like,

  • full time.

  • From the very night I released 'Old Town Road' on Twitter,

  • this song was already, like, moving.

  • (SINGING) I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road.

  • I’m gonna ride till I can’t no more.

  • I got the horses in the back — “

  • “I randomly found it on Twitter.

  • Somebody put his song over a video that I already did.

  • And then I was like, hold on.

  • This song isthis song is kind of hard.”

  • “(SINGING) I got the horses in the back.”

  • It put the black yeehaw agenda and the song together,

  • and it just

  • shot off.”

  • “A lot of people like to say, you know, it was,

  • like, a kid accidentally got it.

  • It’s like, no, this is no accident.

  • Like, I’ve been

  • I’ve been pushing this hard.

  • The internet is basically, like, my parents, in a way.

  • I was raised picking up on stuff.

  • I had to learn how to use it, you know, in my own way.”

  • “I saw you made that post on Reddit where you were, like,

  • what’s that song that goes, I’m

  • gonna take my horse to the old town road?”

  • Yeah, I did that.

  • Because I knew that’s what people were gonna search.

  • Oh, my god.

  • That’s embarrassing.”

  • “I didn’t really know the song existed.

  • I think it was a girl who sent me a meme,

  • and she was like, hey, I heard youre

  • producer tag.”

  • Kio.

  • Kio.”

  • So you’d never met Nas X before?”

  • Never.

  • No.”

  • You didn’t know who he was?”

  • “I didn’t know who he was.

  • Nothing.

  • I feel like it was meant to be, you know?

  • Me finding him right on time.”

  • “(SINGING) I got the horses in the back.

  • Horse tack is attached.”

  • It’s 15 second videos.

  • I have a hard time explaining it to anyone that’s like,

  • so you make money how?

  • I’m like, I dance on camera.”

  • Are you the first person to post 'Old Town Road'

  • on Tik Tok?”

  • It went [bleep] crazy.”

  • “(SINGING) I got the horses in the back.”

  • Everyone was dressed like a cowboy

  • for, like, three weeks.”

  • “(SINGING) Got the boots that’s black to match.

  • Ridin' on a horse — “

  • Once it hit Tik Tok, and it was going viral, I was like,

  • O.K. We won.”

  • We passed the biggest songs out,

  • and we just passed it, like it’s nothing.”

  • “(SINGING) You can’t tell me nothing.

  • Can’t nobody tell me nothing.”

  • You hear that?

  • That’s 'Old Town Road,' Lil Nas X’s big hit,

  • and it was tearing up the country charts until

  • Billboard pulled it off for not being country enough.”

  • Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, now.

  • You got too much dip on your chip.”

  • Do you think there’s a racial element to 'Old Town Road'

  • being removed from the country chart?”

  • “I see it as more of, like, a —

  • we let certain things slide, but maybe this one

  • is too different.

  • If we allow this, who knows?”

  • “I was really mad, because if it didn’t go off the charts,

  • it would be, like, number one.”

  • Billy Ray, tell me when you first heard 'Old Town Road.’”

  • “I heard the song on March the 16th.”

  • Who played it for you?”

  • Tish.”

  • That’s your wife?”

  • Yep.

  • And we were having our morning coffee,

  • and she got a call, I think, from Ron Perry at the record

  • label.

  • And he said, hey, weve got this thing,

  • we’d love for your husband to hear it.

  • And I actually stood up out of my chair.

  • I stood up and go, god, I love that.

  • That dude is original.”

  • If you go to my past tweets, like, two days after I

  • put out the song, I’m like, Twitter, please help me

  • get Billy Ray on there.

  • Because I was, like, Billy Ray Cyrus

  • would be perfect for this.”

  • “(SINGING) Hat down, crosstown, living like a rockstar.

  • Spend a lot of money on my — “

  • Billy Ray, where’s 'Old Town Road' on the charts

  • right now?”

  • Which charts?”

  • The main chart.

  • The Billboard Hot 100.”

  • Oh, 'Old Town Road' is number one.”

  • Yeah, I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road.

  • I’m gonna ride till I can’t no more.”

  • It’s my beats, you know?

  • I just made it here, in my bedroom,

  • and now the whole entire planet is listening to it.”

  • Ridin' on a horse.”

  • “I can’t go down the street without hearing that song