Recess

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RECESS | CULTURE

Why Lil Nas X's 'Old Town Road' doesn’t need the country charts

Nearly 16 years ago, OutKast released “Hey Ya!,” a single that stands as one of the biggest hits of the new millennium. For all its ubiquity today, though, “Hey Ya!” was deceptively revolutionary: Blending an acoustic guitar-driven hook with a funk bassline, rapped breakdowns and an atypical time signature, the song seemed to signal a new dawn for genre — or, rather, the lack thereof.