Lil Durk's 'Broadway Girls' is creating a country music moment. Here's why that's important.
Lil Durk's Morgan Wallen collaboration "Broadway Girls" signifies a musical milestone: trap music authentically borrowing from the sounds of country (and not the other way around).
With the hook-driven song's release, bar dancefloors along Nashville's lower Broadway now stand alongside bottle service rap clubs as places where songs infused with trap-style tracks could reign supreme.
The blending of country music with the highly percussive hip-hop subgenre shows the ever-growing influence of streaming and social media platforms where "Broadway Girls," a cautionary tale about finding love at a honky-tonk, has caught fire. On Youtube alone, the song's music video was viewed 1.5 million views within 24 hours of its release.
Durk and Wallen have both have dominated streaming platforms and headlines in 2021. Chicago-born Lil Durk had 35 appearances on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart during the past year. Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album closed 2021 as the No. 1 Billboard 200 Album of the year, even after a series of highly-publicized transgressions -- most notably being caught on camera saying a racial slur.
"Broadway Girls" arrives more than a decade after popular country music began borrowing elements of trap music. And the urban derivative takes have evolved from Jason Aldean’s 2010 remix version of "Dirt Road Anthem" featuring Ludacris and Florida Georgia Line's pairing with Nelly for the multi-platinum selling remix of 2013's "Cruise.” In 2020, Sam Hunt’s platinum seller "Hard To Forget" bore a sample of Webb Pierce's 1953 country classic "There Stands the Glass" manipulated with a production techniques used by Kanye West in the early 2000s.
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The trend continued in 2021 as Walker Hayes mimicked rap's vocal cadences plus trap's production style to achieve "Fancy Like,” Billboard's number-one selling country song for nearly three consecutive months.
Trap and country’s cultures and populations are mingling in an unprecedented manner. Playlist-driven streaming focuses more on songs than their genres. And Tik Tok and Instagram are where all millennials, regardless of musical interests, scroll posts often soundtracked by 15-second song snippets stripped of all context or cultural significance.
At the same time, country music’s new trap-led party culture is being influenced by millions of Black people -- and hip-hop culture -- migrating or being displaced into largely white-populated suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas – country music strongholds – over the last 20 years. This new scene celebrates on the dancefloor at places like the one Wallen namedrops in “Broadway Girls”: Jason Aldean’s Lower Broadway-located Kitchen and Rooftop Bar establishment.
“I play everything at Aldean’s,” said DJ Donnie D, the resident disc jockey on Aldean's rooftop dancefloor.
“The later the night gets, and the younger the demographic of the crowd gets, the more I’m playing more trap songs than almost all country [music] party songs, for sure," the 26-year turntable veteran and Detroit native continued “And yeah, also, whenever I have country stars in here, pretty much all they want to hear is trap music.”
"Broadway Girls” shows signs of staying power and is creating a musical moment. Representatives from Big Loud Records – the label to which Wallen is signed –tell The Tennessean, “Morgan is a fan of hip-hop and rap music in addition to country. Ever since we met him, he has often talked about ways to blend his music with some of his favorite rap artists. We are thrilled by music that is able to reach beyond one genre and be consumed and marketed to bigger and more diverse audiences. For this song to have the potential to be played in clubs, at Lil Durk’s shows, at Morgan’s shows, and be streamed on multiple genre-styled playlists, we think that’s a win for an expanding format.”
Durk and Wallen’s collaboration could be a seen as a blueprint in an industry eager to recreate songs that resonate with a large audience.
The two artists have roughly 30 million regular monthly listeners to their tracks on Spotify. Other top-selling Billboard favorites have even more. Take, say, Post Malone and Chris Stapleton, or Drake and Luke Combs – both theoretical duos combine for 65 million regular Spotify listeners.
“Broadway Girls” could reach No. 1 in short order. But Malone doing a shot of "Tennessee Whiskey," then Tik Tok dancing the "Toosie Slide" while sipping a chaser to the tune a "Cold Beer Calling My Name” could be a genre-evolving smash.
To borrow another country hit, for some people, the genre's "Not Supposed To Be [This] Way." Nevertheless, it unquestionably is.