During this year's CMA Fest, BuzzFeed spoke to country music singer and songwriter Kane Brown who first rose to fame through social media. He is currently the only artist to get on all five of Billboard's country music charts.
Kane said he grew up country on a dairy farm. "My mom used to listen to Shania Twain, Sugarland, and Tim McGraw. But, I was never really into music until I got into middle school, when Usher was hot. I loved how Usher sang, but once I hit puberty, the closest thing to it for me was country music 'cause they had deep voices."
So, in 2014, Kane started posting covers of popular country songs on Facebook and quickly gained a following.
His cover of George Strait's "Check Yes or No" quickly went viral and his number of followers on Facebook reached over a million.
Kane then released his single "Used to Love You Sober" on Facebook where it reached one million views in less than three hours and over 11 million views in two weeks.
Kane said that one of the most difficult moments of his career was when he first came into the country music scene. "I didn't get to do the traditional radio tour where you meet all the radio people, so I just had to do it every time I had a show. One radio guy I met for the first time was like, 'woah, you're real' because everyone was so used to just seeing me on social media."
And now that he has risen to fame, Kane talked about how his race has affected him as a country artist. "It has been tough – not industry wise – but fan wise. You still have some people out there that don't realize it's 2019. I see a lot of racist comments and negative stuff."
Kane also talked about how people used to assume he was a rapper. "Every time I would tell someone I was an artist – before people actually knew who I was – the first thing they always asked was, 'What do you rap?' And it's like, 'You're judging me off of how I look?'"
Kane said that even though there may still be a stigma around race and country music, it's changing. "Country music is getting more broad and they are letting people in no matter what they look like, which is awesome. It's been an amazing ride and amazing to be someone who's helping open the doors."
Kane said some people just don't give country music a chance. "It's changing and has evolved a lot from back in the day. For people who love pop music or rap, I wouldn't say country is pop or rap, but it's enjoyable to people who listen to that type of music."
And while Kane is a country artist, he isn't afraid of crossover collaborations, having made them with R&B/pop artist Khalid and genre-skipping singer Becky G. He also has a new song with DJ Marshmello that comes out Friday.
CORRECTION
An earlier version misspelled Marshmello's name, and incorrectly identified the genres he and Khalid work in.