Booming beats. A twanging banjo. Is this country music?

When Lil Nas X, a young black hip-hop artist from Atlanta, created the surprise hit “Old Town Road,” he did not imagine that it would end up at the center of a debate on race, the Nashville establishment and musical genres.

The track marries a beat familiar to hip-hop fans with acoustic sounds and lyrics filled with cowboy imagery. Lil Nas X had no record deal when he made it, and the song bubbled up on the internet before it made three different Billboard charts: the Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Country Songs.