He did it.
Lil Nas X‘s “Old Town Road” has officially broken the record for having the longest No. 1 single on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart ever.
The half-rap, half-country song began creeping up on the previous record holders, Mariah Carey and singer Luis Fonsi earlier this month.
Carey’s song “One Sweet Day,” featuring Boyz II Men and released in 1995, and Fonsi’s “Despacito,” featuring Daddy Yankee and put out in 2017, were atop the charts for 16 consecutive weeks, which X tied last week.
And now with “Old Town Road” being No. 1 for its 17th week, he stands as the all-time champion.
“I want to thank everyone who made this moment possible for me,” said X in an Instagram video posted Monday. “We just broke the record for the longest running No. 1 song of all time.”
“Major moves bro,” someone wrote in the comments.
“The boy be on the grind,” a second person wrote.
The 20-year-old uploaded “Old Town Road” to the lip-syncing app TikTok back in February where it caught fire, and users began dressing up in Cowboy attire just like he did.
The song broke a record in March as well, because it was the first to land on Billboard’s Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Country Songs chart at the same time.
But Billboard removed the song from its country charts because it contained too many elements of hip-hop, which many chalked up to race since X is black.
“[The song] does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version,” said Billboard at the time.
Then, once country singer Billy Ray Cyrus jumped on board for a remix, the song went No. 1 in April and stayed there ever since. X has remixed the song several times since then with other artists like the South Korean boy band BTS.
Last week when it still wasn’t known if X would break the record, he was asked what he’d do if it happened.
“I may buy Mariah Carey some roses, and send them to her because I love her,” he answered.
