A debate about what country music sounds like – or more accurately, looks like – is shaping around Lil Nas X, a nineteen-year-old black musician from Atlanta. His song Old Town Road was removed from Billboard’s Hot Country Songs last week, with the chart compilers claiming it wasn’t country enough. According to Chart Data, an account that collates data from Billboard and other sources, the song would have gone to number one on this week’s Billboard Hot Country Songs chart had it not been removed.

The song has a lightly plucked banjo, pastoral lyrics and tells a clear story. It also contains programmed drums and elements of hip-hop. It was released by Columbia, who describe it as a “country-inspired rap track”. It has topped the Apple Music country chart and is classified as country on Soundcloud.

Initially, Billboard agreed with the assessment, including the track in the Hot Country Songs chart. However last week they changed their minds, saying that “while Old Town Road incorporates references to country and cowboy imagery, it does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version”.

The precise elements that make up “today’s country music” are heavily contested. The Hot Country Songs chart currently includes tracks like Miss Me More by Kelsea Ballerini which has a heavily sampled guitar and pop beat and Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line’s Meant to Be, which contains sing-song rapping, repeating beats and pop production. Neither track, at least to the layman, sounds discernibly more “country” than Old Town Road.

In the past when white country stars have tried their hand at rapping, they have also been able to stay on the chart. Toby Keith made a foray into rap with his song I Wanna Talk About Me, and it flew to number one in November 2001.

Some believe there is a racial element in the decision to keep Lil Nas X off the charts. On Twitter, former country music label executive Shane Morris alleged that “Lil Nas X was kicked off the Billboard country charts because the (mainstream) terrestrial country music market is filled to a surfeit with racism and bigotry”.

Other black artists who have written country-inspired songs have struggled to be recognised. When Beyoncé submitted Daddy Lessons to the Grammy Country Committee for consideration, she was rejected.

In an interview with Time from three days ago, Lil Nas X asserted that the song had a right to be placed there. “The song is country trap. It’s not one, it’s not the other. It’s both. It should be on both.”

He also responded to the question of whether he felt the song’s removal had “racial undertones” in an ambivalent manner: “I believe whenever you’re trying something new, it’s always going to get some kind of bad reception,” Lil Nas X said, yet the reception he has been getting from other country artists has been fairly positive.

Yesterday, on Twitter, country pop group Florida Georgia Line posted a photoshopped picture of Lil Nas X holding their album in his hands with the caption, “can’t say I ain’t country” (the title of their new album) and “@LilNasX #rockon.”

So who gets to define what country music? For now, it seems like the musicians have the final say.