The Rise of Kane Brown, Independent Country Sensation

Independent Country Music singer/songwriter Making Waves In Nashville circles with EP sales and scoring fans all over the country.

It’s not often a young independent artist can upset the apple cart in Nashville without much in the way Kane Brown has. For three consecutive weeks he’s seen his new Closer EP rise up the charts from 1k to 4k to 8,100k. He’s risen so far that he’s arrived at #40 on the all-genre chart Billboard 200. That means he’s clearly made an impact with an audience that’s looking for something the mainstream isn’t giving them.

Kane’s grown his fanbase by over 400,000 fans in the past two weeks and now has over 785k fans on Facebook, Spotify and Apple Music (to name 3 metrics), numbers any artist would love to have.

Whereas Taylor Swift was the first country star to be a YouTube and Internet sensation star, Kane Brown feels like the genre’s own Justin Bieber; a guy who has done nearly everything on his own or with a limited group of people helping him out. But, one of those guys Noah Henson, the guitarist for Brantley Gilbert, produced the project.

"A lot of the people in Nashville think the numbers are fake, but they can't prove it," Brown said to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, his local newspaper. "They've never had a Justin Bieber in country music, so they don't know how to deal with it."

Jay Frank, the owner of DigSin and DigMark has signed on as Kane’s manager and he recently was named Senior Vice President of Global Streaming at Universal Music Group.

Kane Brown is the first viral artist of the country music world (See the 9 million plus played video below). His Debut EP Closer has sold around 20,000 copies and the singer certainly is keeping contact with the fans helping him make waves and to the point where he’s now a local celebrity who is getting offers (supposedly including Big Machine, Universal and Warner Music Nashville) all over Nashville but with few precedents for artists in his position, Kane Brown is taking the slower tactic

"I've had offers already, but I want to go to No. 1 and make them come to me. I want to be the next Luke Bryan."

Check yes or no ✔️❌

Posted by Kane Brown on Wednesday, September 30, 2015

2 Comments

  • Jill Welch

    Kane, just curious. Why do you want them to come to you at all?

    • Matt Bjorke

      I'm clearly NOT Kane but I can tell you why: expanded exposure. All artists need the help a label (of any size) can help provide. What he'll now have is the opportunity to be a partner with a label, not unlike what Chase Rice and Granger Smith have with their record label companies.