It didn’t take long for other hip-hop and R&B artists to join in on a party started by Lil Nas’ “Old Town Road.” Now Blanco Brown has hit the country charts with “The Git Down.”
Lil Nas, with the help of Billy Ray Cyrus, reinterpreted what could be, and probably should be, considered country music, with Billboard rewriting its definitions to put the hip-hop infused tune to the top of the country charts and giving the young man a lot of money in the process.
Now there’s Blanco Brown, whose song has garnered more than 4.6 million views on YouTube in just a month (and what a video it is).
Of course, this “trend” is up to some interpretation because Brown may be black, but the song doesn’t have any rapping and his voice is pretty much made for country music singing, in the tradition of Charlie Pride to Cowboy Troy to Jimmie Allen, but the rhythm track and bridge breakdown do have more of a pop/dance flare.
The BBR Music Group artist has now officially topped the Billboard Hot Country chart for the week dated July 13. It is the fastest-rising No. 1 since 2017, according to Radiofacts. Plus, the song has hit No. 1 on the Country Streaming Songs and Country Digital Song Sales charts.
Because of the achy-breaky / electric slide dance provided in the video, it has thousands of user-generated interpretations using #TheGitUpChallenge, making it No. 1 on Spotify’s Global Viral 50, US Viral 50 and Canada Viral 50 charts, plus the No. 1 most-Shazamed Country song globally.
h/t RadioFacts