Lil Nas X has broken Mariah Carey’s 23-year-old record for most weeks at No 1 with his viral country-trap song Old Town Road.
The breakthrough rapper smashed the record this week when the track spent its 17th week on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart – the only song to do so since Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s duet One Sweet Day set the record in 1996.
“YEEE TF HAWWW,” Lil Nas X tweeted Monday.
Hours later the 20-year-old rapper posted a video thanking his fans for helping his song set a new record.
“I’m on the toilet right now, but I want to say thank you to every single person who has made this moment possible for me. We just broke the record for the longest-running No 1 song of all-time,” said Lil Nas X, sporting a cowboy hat as he played Old Town Road in the background. “Let’s go!”
With some irony, the song was listed on the country charts where it peaked at No 19 in March. Then Billboard said it was not country enough and took it off, attracting enough controversy to propel it up the pop charts.
The song was first released on the short-form video app TikTok in February, sparking a meme in which creators drink “Yee Yee Juice” and change into western garb as the song kicks off.
“It’s been incredible to watch Old Town Road grow from its start on TikTok in February – as the backbone of an accessible and engaging meme that generated millions of creations and billions of views – to a record-breaking smash hit that has all walks of life listening on repeat,” TikTok’s general manager Vanessa Pappas told Billboard on Monday.
Old Town Road was originally recorded as a solo song until Lil Nas X added country star Billy Ray Cyrus, who lent his voice to a remix of the track after it was pulled from the country charts.
The song, which has achieved most of its success through audio streaming, also saw remixes featuring Diplo, Young Thug, Mason Ramsey and BTS. To its advantage, Billboard counts the original song and the remixes as one when calculating chart position, thus helping Old Town Road stay on top.
“Seventeen is my new favorite number,” Cyrus said in a statement, also referring to his debut album Some Gave All, which spent 17 weeks at No 1 in 1992. “My goal was always to make music that would touch people’s lives around the world.”
Songs have come close to displacing Old Town Road from the top spot, including Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy and a pair of Taylor Swift singles, but ultimately were unsuccessful.
