Drive

There’s a certain song about horses and old town roads that’s number-one in the world right now. With both elements of country and rap, it picked up momentum last year as a meme, but really gained traction a month ago when Billboard removed the song from its country charts because it supposedly “wasn’t country enough”. This sparked a debate on whether Lil Nas X, the black artist responsible for the song, faced discrimination and gatekeeping because of this, and whether industries define genre by race, class, and gender, more than sound.

The question still remains – are traditional conventions and standards for music genres still applicable in today’s day and age? Dr. Samantha Bennett, Associate Professor in Music at Australian National University, chatted with Ruby on Drive to discuss.