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It’s unclear when Anthony first began uploading music, but his official YouTube page features clips dating back three years — including Tyler Childers and Billie Eilish covers, videos of his German Shepherds playing in a creek and one of the first tunes he shared on Spotify, the bare-bones blues tune “Aint Gotta Dollar.” The latter showed up on the streamer on Sept. 21, 2022, accompanied by one of Anthony’s now-signature backwoods performance videos. The resonator guitar and vocals tune is typical of the singer’s spare output to date, consisting of his cracked voice vocals and lyrics about hard times for proud men: “Well, I ain’t gotta dollar/ But I don’t need a dime/ I’ve got a little spot in the country/ Where I spend all of my time,” along with lines about trusty trucks, farming and home-brewed wine.

The Farmville, VA native uploaded a nearly 10-minute video to YouTube on Aug. 7 in which he laid out his hard-scrabble origin story while sitting in his truck and, he said, “lord willing” churn up some traffic for his tunes. “I really started to write my music back in 2021. Things were obviously not good for a lot of people, and in some respects, I was one of those people,” he said. “I had wasted a lot of nights getting high and getting drunk, and I had sort of gotten to a point in my life where even things that I did care about didn’t mean anything to me anymore.” He said music gave him an outlet and messages he got from other people struggling in their lives inspired him and “gave me a purpose.” The clip also teased what would come next…

In the 10-minute video, Anthony teased that the very next day, Aug. 8, RadioWV — a YouTube channel that highlights W. Virginia musicians — would upload the debut of “Rich Men North of Richmond.” The singer said it would represent the first song he’d recorded “on a real microphone and a real camera and not just on my cell phone.” In a testament to his low expectations at the time, Anthony laughed, “Lord willing it’s gonna get some traffic and maybe at least a few of you are gonna drift your way over here.” After a year of posting originals including “Rich Man’s Gold,” “Cobwebs and Cocaine,” “Virginia,” “Feelin’ Purdy Good” and half a dozen others to little-to-modest notice, Anthony’s modest expectations for “Rich Men” would prove to be too humble by a mile.

Within days of its upload, “Rich Men” began gaining traction, shooting to No. 1 on the iTunes charts and topping Apple Music’s global music charts. In a weird twist of fate, “Rich Men” knocked Jason Aldean’s divisive “Try That in a Small Town” from the top of the iTunes country tally after that latter was deemed a “vile racist song” by Tennessee State Rep. Justin Jones and criticized for a video that was shot at the site of a lynching. In the meantime, the song Anthony described as touching on his time working in a North Carolina factory, as well as on “human trafficking” and “other atrocities,” was drawing attention from conservative pundits — despite the singer proclaiming early on that he sits “pretty dead center down the aisle on politics, and I always have.”

Less than a week after its release, Anthony shared the stage with country outlaw Jamey Johnson, who surprised the singer by joining him at a free pop-up show at Morris Farm Market in Barco, N.C. on Aug. 13 to collaborate on a version of Johnson’s 2008 song “In Color.” “I’m not sure I’ll ever top this moment where Jamey Johnson surprised me to sing his all-time classic with me on stage. What a legend,” Anthony wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).

The singer who has referred to himself as “just some idiot and his guitar,” proved to be much more than that when “Rich Men North of Richmond” — which was officially released on Aug. 11 — debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The out-of-nowhere success made Anthony the first artist to ever launch atop the tally with no prior chart history in any form. The numbers were staggering: 17.5 million streams and 147,000 downloads sold in the week ending Aug. 17, and, with no radio promotion, 553,000 radio airplay audience impressions.

The single also debuted at No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart and No. 4 on Streaming Songs, going from zero streams before Aug. 10 to nearly 700,000 in just two days, with U.S. daily downloads jumping from zero to 20,000 over four days. He totaled 11.2 million on-demand audio streams for the week ending Aug. 15, which Billboard estimated could have earned the singer $40,000; it also had 117,000 track downloads netting Anthony around $81,000. Because Anthony’s music is distributed by DistroKid — which charges a flat fee for distribution — and he owns the song, he pockets the whole amount.

In an exclusive interview with Billboard, co-manager Draven Riffe said he thought “God had a hand in Oliver’s music,” revealing that the pair prayed before the recording session for “Rich Men” outside of Riffe’s farm in Virginia. “In our opinion, God has chosen to speak through Oliver and to speak to all Americans through his music, all around the world,” Riffe said. “We’ve gotten comments from Zimbabwe, every country you could think of.” 

He said there was “not a whole lot of planning” involved in the “Rich Men” roll-out, with the team going on a gut feeling that once the video was out people were going to love it. And though Anthony said early on that he was “pretty dead center” in terms of politics, the song was majorly boosted by right wing pundits and politicians, including podcasting comedian Joe Rogan, Matt Walsh, Breitbart and Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as country singer John Rich, who offered to produce Anthony’s music.

In an Aug. 17 Facebook post, Anthony said he was overwhelmed by the more than 50,000 messages and emails he got in the week after the song blew up. “The stories that have been shared paint a brutally honest picture. Suicide, addiction, unemployment, anxiety and depression, hopelessness and the list goes on,” he wrote, noting that he was in a “weird place” because he never intended to be a full-time musician. Anthony also said he’s been getting “blank stares” from people in the music industry because he brushed off “8 million dollar offers. I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers and a jet,” he said.

Just days before “Rich Men” topped the Hot 100, Anthony kept his guerrilla campaign rolling when he played a free show at Eagle Creek Golf Club in Moyock. N.C. on Aug. 19. Attendees began setting up lawn chairs before noon, with security estimating a crowd of 6,000-8,000 in the community of just over 5,000. With “Oliver Anthony for President” and “Oliver Anthony 2024” signs and shirts spotted in the crowd, the singer took the American flag-bedecked stage and kicked the gig off with a prayer as a lead-in to originals “I Want to Go Home,” “Ain’t Gotta Dollar,” “90 Some Chevy” and “Ive Got to Get Sober,” before playing “Rich Men.” After the show, Anthony spent more than two hours taking photos and signing autographs for fans.

With his explosive success, and no-strings independent approach, Billboard calculated that Anthony went from making less than $200 per week in royalties before “Rich Men North of Richmond” blew up to roughly $365,000 during his chart-topping week. Those figures included an estimated $218,000 in royalties for both recorded music and music publishing from track purchases and on-demand audio streams for the week ending Aug. 17. In addition, 18 other individually released tracks from Anthony’s catalog generated another $139,000 through 73,000 track sales, 14.8 million audio on-demand streams, 658,000 on-demand video streams and 65,000 programmed audio streams.

Just weeks after being introduced to the world, Anthony dropped the video for the acoustic ballad “I Want to Go Home,” which was originally uploaded to TikTok in March. The new visual accompanied another meditation on what ails the nation, including mental illness, fears about impending war, urban spread, the loss of family farms and the lack of prayer in our lives. Like “Rich Men North of Richmond,” the bare-bones “Go Home” video consists of Anthony singing and strumming his acoustic guitar in the woods, flanked by his pickup truck and his trusty dog.

As unflashy as Anthony’s roll-out has been, the just-folks singer-songwriter was unexpectedly shoved into the glaring spotlight during the first Republican presidential debate on Aug. 23, when the first question posed to the eight hopefuls was about “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

“As we sit here tonight, the No. 1 song on the Billboard chart is ‘Rich Men North of Richmond,’” Fox News host Martha MacCallum said to cheers from the crowd at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum. “His lyrics speak of alienation, of deep frustration with the state of government and of this country. Washington, D.C., is about 100 miles north of Richmond.” A 30-second clip of the viral hit was then played, with MacCallum asking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who has referenced the song in campaign speeches — “Why is this song striking such a nerve in this country right now?”

Two days later, Anthony posted a 10-minute YouTube video in which he seemed peeved by the shout-out, saying, “The one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up into this. It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news trying to identify with me like I’m one of them. It seems like certain people want to ride the attention of this song to make their own selves relevant, and that’s aggravating as hell. The other thing that I find aggravating is, well, it was funny seeing my song at the presidential debate, because I wrote that song about those people. For them to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up.”

Anthony’s on-demand streams in the U.S. jumped 2,606% between the week of Aug. 4-10 — when his tunes were streamed 1.2 million times — and Aug. 11-17, when his catalog got 32.8 million on-demand streams in the U.S. In even more eye-popping figures chronicling his meteoric rise, Anthony racked up 32,000 streams total from July 28-Aug. 3, with his Aug. 11-17 figures representing a 102,741% boost.

After making Hot 100 history when “Rich Men North of Richmond” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Anthony held on during week two. He topped the Sept. 2-dated chart thanks to 22.9 million streams (up 31%) and another 117,000 download sales (down 20%) in the Aug. 18-24 tracking week. And though the song is not being promoted to radio, it also tallied 2.3 million airplay audience impressions (up 310%). The single also spent a second week at No. 1 on the Digital Song Sales chart, surged 4-1 on Streaming Songs and topped the Hot Country Songs chart for a second week as well. “Rich Men” also debuted on the Country Airplay chart at No. 45, with 90% of its overall airplay (2 million of 2.3 million in reach) from the chart’s panel of reporting stations.