Kashus Culpepper Is Billboard's February Country Rookie of the Month

With his gritty vocal acoustic musical leanings, Alabama native Kashus Culpepper merges the throug lines braided throughout country, folk, blues, soul and gospel music on his slate of raw musical constructions such as “After Me?” and his latest, “Jenni.”

See latest videos, charts and news

For Culpepper, who signed with Big Loud Records (home to Morgan Wallen and Charles Wesley Godwin) in 2024, that intertwining is natural, given his musical roots embedded in a small-town church in Alexander City, Alabama, where his first musical influence was church leader Deacon McGee.

“He would start all the hymns out at my church, and he had this crazy voice — almost like Howlin’ Wolf, really raspy — and did these Stevie Wonder-like melodies,” Culpepper tells Billboard. “He’s passed on now, but he has been a huge part of my musical influences. I mean, he’s an artist to me, because of the way he sang and the feeling he gave all of the songs he would sing.”

It wasn’t until after high school when Culpepper would solidify his own musical inclinations — though he’s the first to admit that making a living through music, his voice and his songs has been a shift for the 27-year-old.

“I’ve been coming up as a blue-collar guy. All my jobs have been very labor-intensive,” he recalls. “But to come to Nashville where everyone’s writing songs every day, recording and being creative, that was something I had to get used to.”

Culpepper was a state champion wrestler in high school and soon found work as an EMT and a firefighter, before joining the Navy and working as a carpenter (construction battalion). In 2020, at the height of a COVID-19 pandemic-caused pause, Culpepper picked up a guitar and began learning cover songs to entertain his fellow Navy troops while they were deployed in Rota, Spain.

“We couldn’t do much, couldn’t work and we couldn’t leave the base, so I started playing guitar,” Culpepper recalls.

By the time Culpepper returned stateside, he began working for a cement company, but his passion for music was already coming into focus. He played open mic nights around the Mississippi coast, before spending nearly a year as part of a local Southern rock band.

“They wanted somebody who could do Lynyrd Skynyrd but could also do older soulful stuff — B.B. King, Tracy Chapman,” Culpepper says. “I didn’t think I was going to go anywhere with music; I just thought it was a good time.”

As Culpepper continued refining his musical skills, the desire to experiment with different sounds led him to step out on his own with the Kashus Culpepper Band. “I wanted to add saxophone and jazz to those country records and those great storytelling songs,” he recalls.

2023 proved a pivotal year for Culpepper, on both creative and business fronts. He was performing at one of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville locations on the southern coast, when an audience request became the catalyst for Culpepper to begin writing his own material.

“Someone came up and asked me to play a Jimmy Buffett song, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll play it.’ But after I finished my set and was packing up my car, I thought, ‘I wish people would come up to me and ask if I can sing my own song.’ So, I realized I wanted to write songs. That same day, I left the coast and came back home for a few weeks and started writing.”

During that three-week timespan, Culpepper’s younger sister encouraged him to start posting on social media; he started posting a mix of original songs and cover songs, such as his version of Tyler Childers and the Food Stamps’ “Messed Up Kid.”

“That was the beginning blocks of everything that was going on. That got me in a lot of rooms and a lot of eyes on my music,” Culpepper says.

Culpepper relocated to Nashville, and in November 2023, released a snippet of the bluesy post-breakup track “After Me?” on TikTok; that snippet has earned over 3 million views. By mid-2024, he had inked a label deal with Big Loud Records and a publishing deal with Big Loud Publishing/Warner Chappell Music. He followed with songs lilke “Who Hurt You,” and his latest, “Jenni.”

“Big Loud picked me up when no one really knew who I was. [Big Loud CEO] Seth [England], [Big Loud partner/producer] Joey [Moi], all of those guys, they didn’t have to pick me up when I was so fresh on the scene. I loved all the artists they had, between Ernest and HARDY, Morgan and Steven Wilson Jr., and I saw they had artists like Charles Wesley Godwin. I was just excited to be around these artists that are so creative.”

Culpepper has continued to stack up career milestones over the past year, making his Grand Ole Opry debut in December. The CAA-aligned singer-songwriter will be opening shows on Leon Bridges’ The Leon Tour beginning in May, in addition to leading his own headlining shows this year.

Billboard caught up with Culpepper, our staff’s Country Rookie of the Month for February, to discuss his career journey, as well as the people and moments that have inspired him and his career goals.

“After Me?” was your first breakthrough. What inspired that song?

I couldn’t sleep one night and started writing in my journal, about these old memories I had from a girl that I talked to way back when. I think I saw something online that she was doing and I got this old blues melody in my head — I had listened to a lot of Muddy Waters the night before, just all this blues stuff. I showed my buddy Mark [co-writer Mark Chandler] the voice memo I had. I [realized] it was really out there, kind of a Temptations, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” — that type of vulnerable feeling.

You wrote “Jenni” after performing “Revival” with Zach Bryan at Buckeye Country Fest in Ohio. What is the story behind that song?

I saw this girl and got inspired, because with “Revival,” it’s so folk, and Americana — it’s almost like a rock song when you see Zach play it. I got inspired by that, and then seeing that girl — she had a huge beer in her hand. I don’t even know how I picked her out from the crowd. She seemed so carefree.

Do you have plans to release a full project?

I’m working on music. I think a lot of the features and a lot of the stuff that I’m doing with writing, I think a lot of people are going to be very surprised with what I have that’s going on.

You are opening shows for Leon Bridges coming up. How does that feel?

I’m so excited about that. My whole family is so excited about it. I’ve been listening to him for so long; I love all his music and he’s a great guy.

What artist would you love to collaborate with?

Right now, I would love to collaborate with Olivia Dean. She’s from the U.K. She’s so good—a mix between R&B, pop and jazz stuff.

What is one album you could listen to forever?

House of Balloons [Mixtape] by the Weeknd — the moodiness of it, the vulnerability of all the songs, the vibe of it, it’s top-tier with that record.

What podcasts are you into?

I’ve been listening to a lot of Two Girls, One Ghost. They talk about horror and hauntings. Between that and [This Past Weekend W/] Theo Von and Joe Rogan [Experience], I’m all over the place.

Musically, what is on your bucket list?

One day I want to do Red Rocks, and I’m excited about all the music coming out and collaborations with artists that I love.

Source link