Brown played sports and had a steady string of retail jobs, but remained focused on music. won first place in the country for the first time. When producers tried to put him in a boy band, he quit and started posting his country covers on Facebook, some going viral. “I loved you plain” The Beer Tears original, which he self-released in 2015. Soon, Brown signed a contract with RCA Records Nashville.
He began scoring country chart hits and eventually teamed up with early idol Young for a 2021 single. “Famous Friends” One of Brown’s 21 songs to reach the Billboard Hot 100. As a child, Brown only learned that his schoolmates were half black. started labeling him A racial slur, and when he got up to sing at his high school talent show, he Withstood a similar barrage.
Brown, who now speaks as one of the few black marquee names in the country alongside Darius Rucker, Mickey Guyton and Jimmy Allen, said racism is still an everyday reality for him. , I was walking somewhere and they were like, ‘Oh my God, you did so well on Dancing with the Stars.’ I was like, ‘That wasn’t me. It was another black man.”
The plight of black artists in country and the genre’s deep-seated history of racism are now the subject of very public conversation. That debate accelerated last year when Country Her star Morgan Warren was photographed using racial slurs.Brown released in the wake of George Floyd’s murder “World Wide Beautiful” While calling for unity, he still feels constant pressure to act as spokesperson. But when he, Allen, or Guyton were questioned, it was “completely different than when they asked someone else,” he added. I want answer. “
After being silent until now, he is ready to present his point of view. “This is the first time we’ve talked about this, but I know Morgan personally.” in its debut in 2016“I texted him that day. I told him I shouldn’t have told him that, but I knew Morgan too, so I thought he knew the world meant it.” I also knew he didn’t mean it the way I thought he would. “In a different context, we probably would have fought,” he said.