The NIN sample behind Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road

A beat, a sample, a spark

The seed of Old Town Road wasn’t a Nashville session or a Music Row co-write. It was a loop from 34 Ghosts IV, an instrumental track on Nine Inch Nails’ 2008 set Ghosts I–IV. The album, released with a Creative Commons license that allowed non-commercial sharing and remixing, quickly became a playground for producers who liked its haunted textures and open space.

One of those producers was Kiowa Roukema, better known as YoungKio, a Dutch teenager selling beats online. He clipped the pensive guitar- and string-tinged motif from 34 Ghosts IV, laid drums under it, and posted the result to BeatStars, a marketplace where artists can license instrumentals directly from creators. Lil Nas X, then unknown and hustling to define a sound, bought the beat for roughly $30 and wrote a swaggering two-minute hook about horses, hats, and hi-hats.

What happened next is internet folklore: the song’s bite-size length and cowboy imagery made it catnip for short-form video, and its earworm whistle led listeners straight back for another spin. But the bedrock of its appeal was that spectral sample—spare, hypnotic, slightly ominous—carrying a sense of place that felt both front-porch and futuristic.

Clearing the sample and sharing the credit

Ghosts I–IV’s Creative Commons license encouraged experimentation, but it didn’t grant blanket permission for commercial release. Once Old Town Road picked up momentum, the sample had to be cleared the old-fashioned way. The process was notable for what it lacked: scandal. Trent Reznor and his long-time collaborator Atticus Ross approved the use, and both received songwriting credit on Old Town Road.

In an era when sample disputes routinely spill into courtrooms, the amicable clearance felt almost quaint. It acknowledged a reality of modern production—music is a collage—and placed the lineage of the hit right there in the credits. It also set up one of 2019’s most delicious ironies: Reznor, the architect of industrial rock’s bleak beauty, would soon be taking home a CMA statue.

When genre lines snap

Old Town Road ignited a now-familiar culture clash over genre boundaries. Was it country? Hip-hop? A hybrid so efficient at its job that those labels became unhelpful? Billboard famously removed the track from its country chart early in the song’s ascent, defending the decision with a line that became a flashpoint:

…does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version.

Rather than dim the song’s shine, the move turned up the heat. Lil Nas X recruited Billy Ray Cyrus for a remix that foregrounded the twang, and the track became inescapable. It spent 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, the longest reign in the chart’s history at the time. The remix later won two Grammy Awards, and at the 2019 CMAs it claimed Musical Event of the Year—earning Reznor and Ross country hardware for a sample they wrote more than a decade earlier.

The controversy ultimately highlighted a gap between how music is made and how it is categorized. Fans were already living in playlists where trap drums can sit under a dobro without anyone blinking. Old Town Road simply made that reality impossible to ignore at scale.

Algorithms, access, and a new A&R

There’s a modern fairy-tale quality to the story: a teenager sitting at a laptop in Europe, a rapper in Atlanta searching for a vibe, a decade-old instrumental by a pair of Oscar-winning composers, all converging through recommendation engines and platform marketplaces. YouTube surfaces an idea; BeatStars democratizes access to production; a $30 license lets an artist take a swing without label backing.

That pipeline alters the power balance. Instead of a gatekeeper choosing which demo merits a studio, artists shop for sounds the way they pick fonts—quickly, cheaply, and with global reach. Producers, in turn, build portfolios in public, testing what resonates and iterating in real time. Sampling sits at the center of that exchange, a bridge across eras and aesthetics.

But the ease of sampling also raises necessary friction. Clearance still matters. Credits still matter. Old Town Road works as a case study in getting those pieces right once success arrives: acknowledge the source, share the spoils, and keep the train moving.

How it unfolded: a quick timeline

• 2008: Nine Inch Nails releases Ghosts I–IV, an instrumental collection that encourages non-commercial remixing and sharing.
• 2018: Dutch producer YoungKio chops a motif from 34 Ghosts IV into a beat and lists it on BeatStars.
• Late 2018: Lil Nas X purchases the beat and records Old Town Road, a compact, country-trap earworm designed to loop.
• March 2019: As the song explodes, Billboard pulls it from the country chart, citing genre criteria.
• April 2019: Billy Ray Cyrus joins a remix that supercharges the track’s crossover appeal.
• Summer 2019: Old Town Road spends 19 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, setting a new record.
• November 2019: The remix wins CMA Musical Event of the Year; Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross receive CMA trophies.
• January 2020: The track wins two Grammys, cementing its place in pop history.

What the sample says about the song

Listen closely and the NIN fragment at Old Town Road’s core isn’t merely a backdrop. It frames the lyric’s strut like a Western horizon—wide, sparse, tinged with menace—while the beat pushes everything forward. That tension between open space and relentless motion is why the song loops so well: it leaves room for the listener to step inside.

Reznor and Ross wrote 34 Ghosts IV as an atmosphere, not a hook, yet its shape proved elastic. In the hands of a young producer and a resourceful rapper, it became a portal from industrial ambience to country-trap swagger. The sample doesn’t erase its origin; it expands it.