Kane Brown’s making his mark beyond country music
This has become a nextlevel year for Kane Brown.
The country singer from Georgia was already riding high with nine Top 10 country singles and a pair of No. 1 albums — including 2018’s “Experiment,” which also topped the Billboard 200 chart. This year, meanwhile, Brown, 28, became the first black artist to win the Academy of Country Music Award for Video of the year (“Worldwide Beautiful”), and he was also named to Time magazine’s list of the Top 100 Most Influential People.
“I never looked at myself as, like, an influence,” Brown says by phone about the honor. “And then I had a lot of people come up to me to say how cool it was I was leading the charge, that they can look up to me. That’s what opened my eyes up to the situation. It felt very, very cool.”
Brown’s goal is to continue that charge. His latest single, “Blessed & Free,” is a genre-crossing collaboration with H.E.R., and he’s working on his third album — with, Brown says, “enough songs to release it tomorrow” but no firm release date, and a resolve to “keep trying to write things. … I want this to be the best it can be.” Brown’s own label, 1021 Entertainment, is pushing its first act, Restless Road. And, always hungry, he’s looking toward another creative path.
“I’m trying to break into the movie scene right now, spreading my wings like that and see where it takes me — I’m trying to do my Tim McGraw days,” Brown says with a laugh. “I’ve done two auditions already and kinda got a call back. I like action movies, I like horror movies, but honestly I’ve never been in a movie, so I’ll get whatever I can get and we’ll see where that goes.”
Kane Brown, Jordan Davis and Restless Road perform at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 20, at Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Tickets $40.50 and up at 313Presents.com.