A TikTok dance trend carried a SoundCloud rap onto both hip-hop and country charts

Evidence

Lil Nas X’s timing was perfect. Months earlier, Twitter user Bri Malandro had launched the Yeehaw Agenda, a campaign to reclaim the heritage of Black cowboys. On TikTok, this evolved into the Yeehaw Challenge, in which users dressed in cowboy outfits while dancing to cowboy-inspired songs. Bearded hipster Michael Pelchat posted his entry to the trend by dancing to “Old Town Road,” which he’d discovered on SoundCloud. As his video went viral, so did the song. The explosive number of playbacks of “Old Town Road” sent the song soaring up the Billboard charts—under both hip-hop and country. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 624