There are plenty of people who show a dislike for country music. Many people say they listen to all types of music except country. I was even one of the people who said that. But there is a new influence on country music, Hip Hop.
Hip Hop has remained uncontested as the number one genre of music for close to a decade now. But there is no denying the country music is increasing in popularity in the mainstream. In the last 6 years, country music streaming has increased by 287%.
It has been evident that hip-hop and pop artists dipping their toes into the genre is increasing its popularity. Artists the Big X the Plug, Lil Durk, Lil Uzi Vert, Kevin Gates, NLE Choppa, Post Malone, Beyonce, and Young Gravy are just a few of the many artists making country rap fusion songs.
The 90’s
Hip Hop’s influence on mainstream country started to show at the end of the 1990s. Country has been marketed as the experience of life in the Southern United States. Everything from their imagery to their subject matter correlates to their life experience in the South.
At the same time, many influential hip-hop artists also come from the Southern United States. However, their imagery and subject matter correlate to their life experiences growing up in urban environments of Southern Cities.
Hip-hop originated in New York City, and from there it emerged in popularity in other Urban or city environments throughout the United States. But for much of the 80s and 90s, largely in part of Biggie and Tupac’s infamous beef, it was mostly understood as an East Coast and West Coast genre.
There was an abundance of artists making great Hip-Hop Music in the Southern United States, such as UGK, Eightball and MJ 36 Mafia, Goody Mob, and Hot Boys.
While the East and West were fighting, the South was working. There is a strong argument to be made that some of the most influential hip-hop artists have originated from the South.
Kid Rock
It was only a matter of time before someone would be inspired by and fuse these two polar opposite genres that originated from the same area of the country. Though he was not the first to do it, perhaps one of the most mainstream artists to do it, was Kid Rock.
Kid Rock grew up rich, which already doesn’t necessarily portray the lifestyle of somebody who grew up in the southern United States, and he grew up in Michigan. This made him the perfect candidate to steal these two genres that he felt so disconnected from and merge them. Because anybody who grew up in it, probably would have just picked either or.
There’s no denying that Kid Rock’s music merged fans of Rap, Rock, and Country together. This is highlighted in the 1999 track, “Cowboy.” Which sounds like a rap song due to the synthesized drums and high hats as well as well as lyrics about moving to Los Angeles to become a pimp. It also features a blues harmonica and an acoustic guitar while showcasing that stereotypical Southern American imagery.
Kid Rock openly cites Run DMC as an inspiration. You could also see hip-hop was his fashion influence in 1999. At the time, merging these genres and styles felt fresh and innovative.
All though he was not a country artist, he had done shows with country artists which allowed him to gain a lot of friends in that genre. Kid Rock’s music undoubtedly led to other artists seeing what he was doing and then becoming inspired to do the same thing.
The Next Big Country Rap Crossover
In 2004 was the collaboration of Nelly and Tim McGraw on the song, “Over and Over Again.” This song sounds a tiny bit country, but if you listen to it, it sounds like an R&B song.
Even the music video depicts two men who on the surface, seem very different, but convey both of them living the same lifestyle. This song surged to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and became a huge hit.
This is when you start to see the hip-hop influence in mainstream country. Like with the song, “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” by Trace Atkins. Using the slang term “Badonkadonk” which was popularized in hip-hop by Missy Elliot. Her use of the word was featured in her 2002 song, “Work It.”
Atkins’s music video looks like a stereotypical hip-hop video, with girls everywhere shaking their “badonkadonks” in a club. He also sports four-finger rings, a staple of ’90s rap culture.
The idea of a country artist making an entire song about girl’s butts was new but was not even close to new to hip-hop. This track peaked at number two on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart, and number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.
A New Era
In 2010, Jason Aldean’s “Dirt Road” featured him rapping in the song. This song was floating around the Billboard Hot 100 before a remix with Ludicrous in June. This brought over many cross-over fans. This launched the song from number 33 to number seven on Billboard’s charts.
Fans of country music then discovered Florida Georgia Line, who used autotune extensively in their songs—a technique popularized by T-Pain in hip-hop.
The 2012 song “Cruise” by Florida Georgia Line reached number 16 on Billboard Hot 100 on its initial release. But then it had fallen off the Hot 100 in February of 2013. A couple months later, a remix by rapper Nelly was released, and the song re-entered the top 10 peaking at number four.
This proves that the crossover of hip-hop in country music was necessary for this song’s popularity and success. It also proved that mainstream country fans do like hip-hop influence. The song even stayed for 24 weeks at number one on the Hot Country Songs chart.
Breaking Stereotypes
For a long time, people described the stereotypical country song as a white guy singing with a string instrument, wearing a cowboy hat, and driving a truck down a dirt road. But the modern country artist is rapping over trap beats while wearing their sports hats backward in the club or at a house party.
From the beats to the videos, to the autotune use, and the way they dress, some modern country is more hip-hop than it is country. Since hip-hop inspires modern country, why does so little BIPOC representation exist?
This question got amplified to new heights when Lil Nas X blew up for his smash hit “Old Town Road.” This was the longest-running number one song of all time at 19 weeks in a row. Lil Nas X tagged the song as country when uploading it to streaming services.
“Old Town Road” debuted in the 19th spot on the March 16th edition of Billboard’s Hout Country Songs chart. But the following week, the song shifted from the country charts to the rap charts.
Many people online brought up concerns of racism, saying country music doesn’t want a black artist on the country charts. Billboard addressed this by saying the song “incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery but does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.”
So, what does embracing enough country elements mean? They do not refer to the lyrics or imagery, as the video portrays cowboys and cowgirls line dancing. They also admit that it has references to country imagery. This leads the question, does the song have a hip-hop beat?
What is Country?
This is where the lines get blurry. Because if you’re determining it is a hip-hop song because of the beat, you have to look at the longest-running number one Billboard Country songs of all time.
“Last Night” by Morgan Wallen has 808 drums and the classic hip-hop snap that was popularized in the krunk/snap era. “Body Like a Backroad” by Sam Hunt also has the 808 sounds yet another snap. In “Meant to Be” by Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line, the 808 sounds and snaps can be heard as well.
These are the most popular country songs of all time according to the Billboard charts.
Just 2.3% of ACM Awards and 1.6% of CMA Awards nominees between 2000 and 2019 were people of color. Country radio played 11,484 songs from 2002-2020, Roughly 1% of those song, or 133 songs, were played by black artists. That number becomes even lower when you factor in how many of those songs were by women of color. Out of the 11,484 songs, only 23 of them were by Black women.
Mickey Guyton’s 2015 single “Better Than You Left Me” stood as the highest country song by a Black woman in the century, peaking at number 30. That is until Beyonce broke that record in 2024 with a handful of her songs from her album ‘Cowboy Carter’ breaking into the top 30 on the country charts. This crowned her as the first Black women to achieve a number one album on the country and hip-hop charts.
Despite this achievement, Beyonce received zero nominations for the 2024 Country Music Awards. Post Malone, who also broke into the country scene this year, received four nominations.
Then Shaboozey, who is another Black country artist, dethroned her spot. Making it the first time two black artists have led the Hot Country Songs chart back-to-back since the chart’s creation in 1958. Shaboozey has two CMA nominations.
Shaboozey’s hit song, “A Bar Song,” heavily samples and interpolates an early 2000a hip-hop song called “Tipsy” by J-Kwon. Shaboozy will be one of the key artists to merge country and rap fan bases.
The rise of most artists in the Pop or Rap genre dipping their toe in the country music scene will lead to a much more diverse fandom. This will lead more people to become fans of the genre as a whole.
