A tatted-up ’90s kid born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to a white mother and Black-Cherokee father, Kane Brown didn’t at first look country to some of the people minding the gates. The way he launched his career—sharing covers of George Strait and Lee Brice over social media—didn’t fit, either. However, there was his undeniable sound: traditional but slick and modern, with bits of pop, R&B and hip-hop woven in. The baritone might remind you of Randy Travis; the backing track could fit in with a ’90s slow jam. Brown’s self-titled debut came out in 2016 and Experiment followed two years later, broadening his style, voice and songwriting with tunes like the joyful “Good as You” and the earnest “Homesick”. With 2022’s Different Man, Brown leaned more heavily into the country side of his country-pop, collaborating with Blake Shelton on the brooding title track and snagging a cameo from Brooks & Dunn for “Like I Love Country Music”. And on 2025’s The High Road, he spread out even further stylistically, enlisting masked EDM superstar Marshmello for “Miles on It” and duetting with his wife, Katelyn, for the clubby, R&B vibe of “Body Talk”.