Music
KASHUS CULPEPPER SEES “WHO HURT YOU”
NASHVILLE, TENN. – Freshly signed to Big Loud Records and hot off his first-ever release “After Me?,”Alabama-born country crooner Kashus Culpepper returns with sophomore submission, “Who Hurt You,”out now.
Made in collaboration with the same trio behind “After Me?” – co-written by Culpepper and Mark Addison Chandler, produced by Brian Elmquist (The Lone Bellow) – the song originally set his career ablaze with a dynamite performance on cult-followed RadioWV, “Who Hurt You” is a testament to Culpepper’s revelatory lyricism. A reflective letter to himself underscored by sparse piano and acoustic guitar, Culpepper is pensive, giving himself permission to accept when other people’s actions cause undeserved consequences.
Don’t you think it’s time to end this hell / Let go and quit beating up yourself
‘Cuz you didn’t make your daddy leave you and your mama
You didn’t make that girl that broke you break her promise
Hell, you didn’t ask Uncle Sam / to send your friends to that foreign land
Time to face the truth / it ain’t the man in the looking glass / who hurt you
“This song means so much to me,” Culpepper shared on socials when announcing the song earlier this week. “It was one of the first original songs I put up on socials. And I wasn’t expecting it to do what it did. Me and Mark the day we wrote it just wanted to get some things off of our chest, and we just put a melody behind. At first, I was kinda scared to post it, because of how vulnerable I was in the song. So, thank y’all for helping me realize we all go thru things, and there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. From the comments, messages, and singing it with me at my shows has really made this ole ‘Bama boy happy. Love y’all and can’t wait for y’all to hear the full version.”
Culpepper released his first-ever single, “After Me?,” in June to critical acclaim, with Billboard noting how “He inhabits a country-blues amalgam in similar musical terrain as country / Americana stalwarts such as Marcus King and Chris Stapleton, while infusing his work with his signature muscular, sandpapery growl. In the process, he towers in a lengthy list of artists finding enduring success with sounds expanding beyond the boundaries of mainstream country.”
The rising singer-songwriter is on tour this summer with NEEDTOBREATHE and Charley Crockett, including the July 26 stop of the $10 Cowboy Tour at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. See Culpepper live here, full list of tour dates below.
KASHUS CULPEPPER TOUR DATES
July 20 – Louisville, Ky. – Iroquois Amphitheater*
July 26 – Nashville, Tenn. – Ryman Auditorium $
Aug. 2 – Cedar Rapids, Iowa – McGrath Amphitheatre*
Aug. 4 – Green Bay, Wis. – EPIC Event Center*
Aug. 20 – Richmond, Va. – The National $
Aug. 22 – Wilmington, N.C. – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater $
Aug. 23 – Wilmington, N.C. – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater $
Aug. 24 – Atlanta, Ga. – The Eastern $
Aug. 25 – Simpsonville, S.C. – The Marcus King Band Family Reunion 2024
Aug. 30 – Macon, Ga. – Macon City Auditorium*
Sept. 1 – Augusta, Ga. – The Bell Auditorium*
* with NEEDTOBREATHE
$ with Charley Crockett
ABOUT KASHUS CULPEPPER
Alabama-born country crooner Kashus Culpepper encompasses the sound of the South. A student and reverent purveyor of Southern music – country, soul, blues, folk, and rock – Culpepper’s husky, sandpaper growl bellows like a freight train over self-penned stories that are as raw and real as they are haunting. Finding his voice in church as young as five years old, it wasn’t until 2020’s global pandemic that Culpepper went from listener to performer, picking up a guitar and learning cover songs to play at barrack bonfires in Rota, Spain during his deployment with the Navy.
Covers soon became originals, and once he landed home on U.S. shores, Kash played dive bars up and down the Mississippi Gulf Coast, making a name for himself with the fresh-yet-reminiscent sound that oozes from his very being. Crashing into prominence now, Culpepper has already sold-out headline club shows throughout the South despite never formally releasing a single song, also opening shows nationwide for sound pioneers like Charles Wesley Godwin, Charley Crockett, and NEEDTOBREATHE. With Nashville taking notice, Culpepper found a musical home at Big Loud Records, and just dropped his first two career singles “After Me?” and “Who Hurt You.” MusicRow hails Culpepper as “thoroughly gripping,” and with the promise of more music on the way in 2024, The Tennessean predicts how one of their 10 Nashville artists you need to know for 2024’s “forthcoming material could offer…significant acclaim.”
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