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WORDS BY MAURICE GARLAND
PHOTOS BY G L ASKEW II
Singer-songwriter Breland is charting a unique path to becoming a country star by honoring all the genres that have shaped his distinctive sound.
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Walking down Fifth Avenue on a Wednesday afternoon in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, feels about as busy as you would suspect in any capital city.

Vacationers wearing cowboy hats and Crocs in “sport mode” are moving slowly as they visit local tourist spots, while working people in attire ranging from business to construction are rushing back to their jobs after eating lunch. Moving at his own pace, country artist Breland is living both of those paths as he wraps up the last leg of a playful, hours-long photo shoot on a balmy day in late June.

The day began at contemporary residential skyscraper 505 Nashville. Throughout the shoot, Breland is open to the photographer’s spontaneity, despite it requiring multiple elevator trips and calls to the building staff for key-card access. One minute he’s shooting pool at the game room on the seventh floor of the apartment renters’ wing; the next he’s playing John Legend’s “Ordinary People” on the Yamaha grand piano inside the luxe eighth-floor lounge for the building’s condo owners. As the day goes on, residents’ facial expressions range between an inquisitive “who?” when they see him with a camera crew and an annoyed “why?” when they can’t fit on the elevator with them. Breland responds to both with the same pleasantries.

505 Nashville has a commanding presence in the city, standing 45 stories tall, with a glass facade that reflects every color in the sky. But the photo shoot’s next location, the historic Ryman Auditorium, with its arched stained-glass windows, still manages to tower over it with 132 years of music history.

Formerly home to the legendary Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman is flanked by statues honoring some of its past performers, all of whom left their marks on country music. Among them are pioneering female singer and guitarist Loretta Lynn, bluegrass music creator Bill Monroe, and its latest addition, Charlie Pride, who is known as the first Black superstar in country music.

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Breland, 29, was photographed for The Red Bulletin at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on June 26.
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In March, Breland hosted his third annual Breland & Friends benefit at the Ryman Auditorium. The event raised more than $140,000 to help youth in Tennessee.
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While Breland is a long way from getting bronzed, the gold-and platinum-selling 29-year-old singer-songwriter already has a mainstay presence at the venue and is becoming hard to ignore.

Ever since crashing onto the music scene with his 2019 viral hit “My Truck,” Breland has been on a mission to change the way people view country music and Black people’s position in it. The song emerged on the heels of Lil Nas X’s crossover smash “Old Town Road” and Blanco Brown’s dance anthem “The Git Up” and a year before Nelly’s collaboration with country duo Florida Georgia Line, “Lil Bit.” All of which feature Black men as the lead vocalist on a country song, foreshadowing the current larger wave of Black artists swerving over into the country lane.

Going on to plant his flag with 2020’s Breland EP and his 2022 debut album Cross Country , Breland quickly became one of country music’s most sought-after collaborators due to his exceptional songwriting and penchant for melody. Just four years into his solo career he’s already been on tour with country queen Shania Twain, co-written two songs with Grammy-winning star Keith Urban and won an Academy of Country Music Award (in 2023). This June he was named a Global Music Ambassador for the U.S. State Department alongside artists like Chuck D of Public Enemy and Herbie Hancock, who will all be tasked with “elevating music as a diplomatic platform to expand access to education, economic opportunity and equity, and inclusion.”

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It has to be mentioned that he was already doing that before the government gave him a job title. Since 2022, he’s hosted his annual “Breland & Friends” benefit concert at the Ryman, where a long list of music superstars, including Josh Groban and Nelly, have joined him on stage to perform duets and create a slew of one-night-only memories for sold-out crowds. Last year’s show produced a live album, and to date, the event series has raised more than $300,000 for the Oasis Center, an organization dedicated to helping youth in Middle Tennessee, with services ranging from crisis intervention to college prep.

With so much on his plate—including opening for fellow genre-mashing artist Teddy Swims’s tour starting in September and performing at a new event called Red Bull Jukebox in October—no one would blame Breland for catching a breath on this walk he’s taking. But with the path that he’s helped to clear getting more occupied by the day, he doesn’t feel like he can slow down right now.

“When I came onto the scene, it was me, Kane Brown, Mickey Guyton, Darius Rucker, Jimmie Allen, Blanco Brown as far as Black artists in country music that had [record] deals,”

says Breland, literally counting the names on one hand as he recites them. “Now there’s probably 15 to 20 Black artists that have deals and are putting music out. Beyoncé coming into this space changes the landscape, and now there’s more diverse crowds that are tapped into country music and country music is having this really unique cultural moment that I definitely feel like I contributed to in a meaningful way.”

He pauses. “But it’s also something that I feel like I need to turn the gas up a little bit more, because there’s always more work to be done.”

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“That doesn’t really happen a whole lot in music because it tends to be segmented and the music industry has made it that way. There’s a lot of history to support that. So I knew that what I was doing was different and that it did have the chance to build a bridge between cultures that don’t always have anything at their epicenter.”

While it would be nice to think that technology has flattened the fences and made everything available to everybody all at once, that is only partially true. Because of algorithms, curated playlists and other metrics that continue to shape listeners’ tastes, it can be argued that audiences are as segregated as ever. In theory, a hardcore hip-hop head can click on a digital service provider’s “Hot Country Music” playlist out of sheer curiosity. Just like a lifelong country music fanatic could do the same with an R&B playlist. But if there’s nothing or no one there framing it in a way that would help them understand the music or the people behind it, it’s not likely they would take any real interest. It’s Breland’s hope that music like his can be that introduction past the marketing and closer to the idea that people can find and appreciate what they have in common.

“I think country music and hip-hop are really two sides of the same coin,” says Breland. “You’ve got people that are expressing themselves in a way that doesn’t have any rules. To me, what makes that album a country album is that in its own way it is telling stories, and I think hip-hop does the same thing. It’s just using different language, production and instrumentation, but it’s the same thing.”

At age 29, it has taken some contrasting life experiences for Breland to arrive at seeing things that way. Born and raised in Burlington, New Jersey, Daniel Gerard Breland grew up exclusively around gospel music, as both of his parents were ordained ministers who also recorded and performed music themselves, touring churches and other small venues. With the town being just 40 minutes northeast of Philadelphia, he was also raised in the religion of sports, which explains why his Instagram feed mostly features videos of him singing or giving game predictions—or, at his apex, singing the game predictions.

Brought up in a musical household, Breland says he and his siblings had to learn how to sing whether or not they planned on pursuing the craft professionally. Luckily for him, when he did decide to do music for a living, he had tons of research to pull from.

“One of the benefits of growing up in an environment like that is we had Pro Tools when I was 9 years old,” says Breland of the popular audio software, adding that seeing his parents hold down day jobs while also producing music kept him inspired when he found himself in the same situation starting his own career. “So now I have 20 years of Pro Tools experience where, if I’m in a studio and the engineer is moving too slow, I’m like, ‘Get out the way, bro—I’m about to just sit down and get this done myself.’ It brings me a lot of joy to be able to record myself, because it is a very grounding and fundamental experience from my childhood.”

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Growing up in a musical household in Burlington, New Jersey, Breland and his siblings learned how to sing at an early age. His parents, both ordained ministers, recorded and performed music, touring churches and the like.
2024
breland tour dates
6
Sep
Grand Sierra Resort
Grand Theatre
Reno, NV, USA
8
Sep
Dillon Amphitheater
Dillon, CO, USA
12
Sep
Harrah's Council Bluffs
Stir Concert Cove
Council Bluffs, IA, USA
13
Sep
Lights Amphitheater
West Fargo, ND, USA
14
Sep
Lights Amphitheater
West Fargo, ND, USA
17
Sep
The Sylvee
Madison, WI, USA
23
Sep
KEMBA Live! Outdoor
Amphitheatre
Columbus, OH, USA
24
Sep
Landmark Theatr
Syracuse, NY, USA
26
Sep
Palace Theatre
Albany, NY, USA
28
Sep
Ocean Casino Resort
Dillon, CO, USA
2
Oct
Red Bull Jukebox
Ascend Amphitheater
Nashville, TN

It wasn’t until he left home and went to boarding school at the Peddie School in nearby Hightstown, New Jersey, in his teenage years that he was exposed to other genres like R&B, rock and rap. Up to this point, the only experience he had actually doing music was singing in his school and church choirs or singing background for his older siblings in impromptu performances at home. Now that he was out on his own, he wanted to try making this new music he was hearing. It was here that he started working with his roommate, who had the tools and instruments to help him do just that.

“The way my brain works just as a musician, when I hear two songs that are totally different, I’m immediately thinking of how they’re similar,” says Breland.

“I love seeing how rock songs would play with these chord progressions and what types of production elements they would use and what really makes something a rock song, what really makes something a country song. Being able to find those similarities was just really exciting to me, just got my brain moving in a different way.”
"I have 20 years of Pro Tools experience," says Breland, who began experimenting with the software at nine-years-old. "It brings me a lot of joy to be able to record myself, because it is a very grounding and fundamental experience from my childhood.”

Breland’s different way began to take shape when he declined admission into NYU’s highly coveted Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music to instead study business at Georgetown University. He explains the decision simply, stating, “I already knew how to make music” and instead wanted to learn the business side of the industry he dreamed of entering. While at Georgetown, he joined the university’s long-running a cappella group, the Phantoms, but off-campus he began dabbling with rap music, linking with producers Austin Powerz and Lee on the Beats, often working out of DJ Khaled’s New York City studio. Breland is the first one to admit that, as a studious college student raised in the church, he felt like a fish out of water in that environment. But he notes that he was able to connect with everyone in the room because they all spoke the language of music.

“Regardless of what everybody else was into in their personal lives or in their social lives, I knew when we got in the studio to make music, they could respect me as their peer because I’m gonna come up with melodies and I’m gonna come up with lyrics,” he says.

Unfortunately, activities in people’s personal lives are exactly what eventually impacted his decision to move on. One of the main artists with whom he’d built a rapport—a rappper from Queens and protégé of French Montana named Chinx—was gunned down at an intersection in 2015, changing Breland’s mind about what avenue he wanted to take into the music industry.

“It really rocked me because I hadn’t really been exposed to that kind of violence,” says Breland, adding that had it not been for Chinx telling him to stay in the studio and finish the songs they were working on, he would have been in the car with him that night. “I felt like at that point, I don’t know if I wanna be in this scene. It felt like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air moment where ‘my mom got scared’ and said you can’t go to Far Rockaway, New York, anymore.”
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After finishing up at Georgetown, earning a degree in marketing and management, the next mile of Breland’s walk took him where most people in his situation go: Atlanta. While the nicknames like “the Black Mecca” and “the Motown of the South” have begun to grow gray hairs, the city still remains a hotbed for young Black musicians looking to get to the next level—the catch being that there are so many of them.

“I personally loved how many people there were in Atlanta that were trying to make music, because it felt like it gave me a bit of a community,” says Breland, responding to the notion that being yet another Black person in Atlanta making music could lead to being completely overlooked.

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Beyoncé coming into this space changes the landscape, and now there’s more diverse crowds that are tapped into country music.
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To Breland, the “Nashville perspective” means creating melodies and writing lyrics that, as he simply puts it “make sense,” instead of relying on a stream of consciousness, just saying things that sound cool. This linear approach to songwriting slowly started to get Breland noticed in industry circles, catching the ear of people like the previously mentioned Taylor, which led to getting placements with artists like Trey Songz, YK Osiris and Elhae. While reading his name on album cover credits felt great, opportunities were still trickling instead of flooding, leading to him taking a corporate job and working a side gig as a vocal coach to make ends meet. Around this time, Breland was also starting to wonder if he was being pigeonholed. He knew he could sing but was advised to remain a writer. He listened to different musical genres but was only being approached to write in the hip-hop, R&B and occasionally gospel spaces.

Wanting to try something new, Breland got back into the experimental phase he had first explored in high school. One of the fruits of that phase, “My Truck,” wound up pushing his career into four-wheel overdrive.

Soon after signing his deal, Breland relocated to Nashville, sensing that the direction his music was going would be more welcome there. Which was probably the best thing he could’ve done at the time. Atlanta’s musical identity is a by-product of its predominantly Black population, built on a legacy of artists including Curtis Mayfield, Bobby Brown and OutKast. It’s also the birthplace of trap music and home to multiple Black megachurches. In such a crowded musical landscape, there wasn’t much room for Breland to find his path to success. Years prior, popular country singer Kane Brown had a similar go at it, learning that being a Black country artist in a Black city doesn’t always work before finally moving to Nashville himself. Things were looking up for Breland until March 2020, when the music industry slowed down due to COVID.

Breland, 29, was photographed for The Red Bulletin at 505 Nashville in Nashville on June 26.

Forced into quarantine like the rest of the world, Breland figured that since everyone, including in-demand producers, songwriters and artists were all at the house and not touring or bouncing around studios as usual, he should shoot as many shots as possible. This led to him forming online relationships with dozens of people despite being new to town. Those bonds would pay off in the form of a star-studded cast joining him for his 2022 debut album Cross Country, featuring appearances from the aforementioned Urban, Lady A, Mickey Guyton and Thomas Rhett, with writing contributions from Sam Sumser, Sam Hunt and Hardy to name a few. Some of these same friends and more have performed at “Breland & Friends” too. A rolodex of this kind usually belongs to artists who have already proven themselves with a string of hit records. In Breland’s case, he garnered all of this support in less than five years.

“Country music is a space where being of value to the environment in which you’re working trumps everything,”

says Nashville-based country music reporter Marcus K. Dowling, about how and why Breland can already be surrounded with such talent. “So if you’re an A-plus-level songwriter or if you’re a fantastic arranger-producer-composer and you’re also somebody who understands exactly what a vocal should sound like and you can do all of these things like Breland can? Then when you put him into those rooms, he is immediately a person of great value.”

The success of “My Truck” came at a time when genres, especially hip-hop and country, were beginning to flirt with each other more often, as more artists began to try different styles in hopes of reaching a larger audience. While the song’s clever songwriting and clean production kept it from being seen as a gimmick, there was still a hint of “oh that’s different” to the tune. But since then, more Black artists who were well known in rap and R&B are stepping into cowboy boots, making it look normal while making history in the process.

In 2022 we saw Chicago drill rapper Lil Durk link up with country bad boy Morgan Wallen for the hit song “Broadway Girls.” The following year former Love & Hip Hop cast member K. Michelle announced she was leaving her R&B career to start a new one in country. In spring 2024, Beyoncé’s single “Texas Hold ‘Em” from her album Cowboy Carter and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” marked the first time two Black recording artists consecutively occupied the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. (Both songs peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, too.) In the months after that we’ve seen Quavo of Migos enter the country chart with his Lana Del Rey collaboration “Tough,” and LVRN, a label known for acts like 6lack and Summer Walker, sign their first country artist, Tanner Adell, off the strength of her trap-tinged country song “Buckle Bunny.”

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Where many artists could view more people entering a lane as competition for attention, Breland still views it as an opportunity for everyone to thrive. But, as he stands on the sidewalk between Pride’s statue at the Ryman and the National Museum of African American Music right across the street, he does have a place in mind where competition could be welcome.

“The BET Awards would be a great space where you could have an award for Best Country Artist, Best Country Album and let it be by the culture for the culture,”

says Breland, well aware that the awards show is being taped in Los Angeles the same weekend we are speaking. As of 2024, there are no country music categories at the awards show. “We’re still probably a couple years away from that, but I do think it would be great, because we’re probably not going to fully be able to break down some of those other barriers within the country music world. So why not try something else? There’s a lot of artists in this space now that are making music at a high level. And I just think that exposure on a night like that would be really dope, man.”

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Catch Breland at Red Bull Jukebox on October 2nd! Including performances by: Brothers Osborne, Shaboozey, Priscilla Block, Tucker Wetmore, Muscadine Bloodline and The Castellows.
Red Bull Jukebox is an extraordinary concert where fans curate the show by voting on song selection, performance style, and surprise moments. With its USA debut in Nashville, we are celebrating country music and the art of songwriting with a stacked seven-artist lineup reflective of the unique and diverse landscape that country music embodies today.
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