UPDATE: Lil Nas X Breaks Record for Longest No. 1 Song in History

UPDATE (July 29th, 2019): Lil Nas X has officially broken the record held by both Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" and Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day."

The openly queer artist now has the longest no. 1 song in the Billboard's history. The song has charted for twenty-one consecutive weeks and it's time at no. 1 is now at seventeen weeks.

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A gay rapper's collaboration with a country singer just tied the record for the longest run ever at the top of the Billboard Hot 100.

Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" remains at number 1 for the 16^th consecutive week, a feat achieved only by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" and Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day." Should the queer cowboy ride one more week, he will go where no recording artist has ever gone before.

Keith Caulfield, Billboard senior director of charts, said a number of factors played into the single's long run.

"The viralness of it, the dance element of it, the meme-worthiness of it, and the fact that it's just catchy as hell," he said.

Lil Nas X, who came out at the end of Pride Month, has clearly enjoyed the long run at number 1. He joked on Twitter Monday that he "just forced everybody at red lobsters to stream old town road."

He also posted a gif of a cartoon squid begging for change in the streets, and captioned it "me on the internet this whole week tryna break the billboard record."

Last week, he also set a record for the longest chart-topping single by a queer artist, surpassing Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997."

"Old Town Road" has also topped the Streaming Songs chart for a 16^th week. Billboard additionally reported the top streaming week overall in the chart's history. He's topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart as well.

But Billboard still refuses to include the rap-country hybrid on its Country Songs charts. That chart, though, has been topped for two weeks by a Black artist doing another genre-breaking viral hit, "The Git Up" by Blanco Brown.