Brown contemplates "What If"

Different Man

It's easy to be skeptical about Kane Brown's country music credibility, as he often times releases music that has more in common with R&B than anything honky tonk-ready. Those who watched Brown perform "Grand" on the MTV VMAs this year, might not even know there's a country music bone in his body. That cut is far more in The Weeknd stylistic spectrum than the rest of the album, though. In contrast, "I Love You Like I Love Country Music," which is getting ...

Experiment

There's not a lot of room for argument to say that men singing country music today are different than the stars on the old Porter Wagoner show. Many have ditched the cowboy hat. They're hip-hop fans, video game junkies and spent most of their teenage money on tattoos. Kane Brown checks all these boxes and more. He's biracial, for example, subverting a country culture that seemed a little too exclusive for this century. And he built his following via the internet, not in clubs (a ...

Kane Brown

First look at the cover for Kane Brown's full-length debut album, and you may experience a "Homeboy" moment. The young man appears like the tattooed model for Eric Church's song of the same name. Although Brown is categorized as bro-country in some quarters, the actual music he makes is much better than you might expect. This is one case where you shouldn't judge the book by its cover. Although the album includes a lustful song like "Pull It Off," which is a ...