Today, a strange and unlikely underdog story reaches its glorious conclusion. Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ ungodly-catchy country-rap fusion “Old Town Road” is now the longest-reigning #1 hit in the 61-year history of the Billboard Hot 100. As Billboard reports, “Old Town Road” has now been the #1 single in America for a mind-boggling 17 weeks.

Last week, “Old Town Road” tied the record, pulling even with the 1995 Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men collaboration “One Sweet Day” and the 2017 Luis Fonsi/Daddy Yankee/Justin Bieber smash “Despacito.” Today, “Old Town Road” vaults past those songs. A young man with absolutely no previous pop profile has now defeated every giant in the music industry. It’s an amazing story.

Seventeen weeks is a long-ass time. Since “Old Town Road” hit #1, Notre-Dame Cathedral has burned. The Mueller Report has come out. The entire final season of Game Of Thrones has aired on HBO. Avengers: Endgame has hit theaters and become the highest-grossing movie in history. The Toronto Raptors have won the NBA Championship. The US has won the Women’s World’ Cup. Kofi Kingston has won the WWE Championship. All of this has happened while this goofy cowboy-rap song has been the #1 song in America.

To be sure, Lil Nas X effectively gamed the Billboard charts on the way toward breaking the record. He’s cannily timed the releases of several big remixes — including, last week, a K-pop “Old Town Road” with BTS member RM — in a transparent effort to keep “Old Town Road” atop the charts. But it’s still impossible to overstate his achievement here.

Consider: A few months ago, Lil Nas X was a broke 19-year-old college dropout, crashing on his sister’s couch in Atlanta. He paid the Dutch producer YoungKio $30 for the Nine Inch Nails-sampling “Old Town Road” beat, and he relentlessly pushed his song online, transforming it into a meme. When the song took off, the first artist who Lil Nas X recruited for a remix was a 57-year-old country star whose biggest success had come before he was born, and who was now mostly known as a former sitcom dad. The song Lil Nas X made kept an endless succession of pop-music big dogs from hitting #1: Taylor Swift (twice), Shawn Mendes (twice), Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Camila Cabello, the commendably tenacious contender Billie Eilish. And now Lil Nas X has the longest-reigning #1 single of all time. Can’t nobody tell him nothing.

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last year in october , as a struggling artist ‍♂️starting to lose faith in what i could be, i went looking for beats on youtube‍. i remember clicking on so many generic sounding beatstrying to find the right one for me. when suddenly i came across a country-trap ‍sounding masterpiece. i immediately knew i would make something special out of it⚡️! my sister told me i had little time left ⏳before i had to leave her house after being there for months promoting my music online and not helping‍♂️ her out much. i was so upset ! i used it as motivation for the song! i jokingly/seriously saw myself as a loner ‍♂️ cowboy needing to run away from it all! I went out on my sister’s back porch and listened to the beat OVER & OVER & OVER!! then it came to me!! in my best singing voice i sung “YEAHHH IM GONNA TAKE MY HORSE TO THE OLD TOWN ROAD IM GONNA RIDEEEE TIL I CANT NO MORE ” I LOVED IT ALREADY! i started to work on it‍ EVERY SINGLE DAY. it needed to be funny, it needed to be catchy, it needed to be hip hop , it needed to be country, & it needed to be short!! by the time i was finished setting it up ‍♂️ i was out of my sister’s crib and at my brothers ‍ place. on ☃️december 2️⃣nd i went into the studio & recorded OLD TOWN ROAD✨ & put it out the exact same day!! did i know it would become the longest running number 1️⃣ song of all time? NO! ‼️ but i am so thankful that this blessing ✨ has been placed upon me. this song has changed my life and the way i see the worldaround me‍♂️ in less than a year. thank you to every single person☝️ who has been apart of this journey. as i said before, it’s just the beginning! ⚡️

A post shared by Lil Nas X (@lilnasx) on Jul 29, 2019 at 11:31am PDT

YEEE TF HAWWW 🐎⚡️

— nope (@LilNasX) July 29, 2019