Alabama-born country singer Kashus Culpepper channels the deep-rooted sounds of the South, blending country, soul, blues, folk, and rock into his distinct, husky growl. He first discovered his voice in church at age five, but it wasn’t until the 2020 pandemic that he picked up a guitar and began playing covers during his Navy deployment in Spain. Those covers quickly turned into original songs, and after returning home, he built a reputation performing in dive bars along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. His fresh yet nostalgic sound quickly gained traction, leading him to sell out club shows across the South before even releasing his first single.
Now signed to Big Loud Records, Culpepper has shared the stage with artists like Charles Wesley Godwin, Charley Crockett, and NEEDTOBREATHE. His recent singles, including ‘After Me?' ‘Who Hurt You?', ‘Out of My Mind,' ‘Pour Me Out,' and ‘Jenni,' have resonated with fans and critics alike. Named a 2025 Amazon Music Bonfire Artist to Watch and a Pandora Country Artist to Watch, Culpepper is making waves in country music. Billboard praises him as an artist “finding enduring success with sounds expanding beyond the boundaries of mainstream country.”
He is in the UK this weekend to play a series of shows at the C2C festival at the O2 arena and we caught up with him just before he flew over to talk all about his career and life so far.
Lovely to talk to you today Kashus, it looks sunny over there in the USA!
It is – what's it like there in England right now?
It's not great this week – quite cold, not getting much over 8 or 9 degrees centigrade so I'd bring a coat with you for the weekend if I were you!
Oh man! (sighing) I'll be good – I'm ready to get out there. I fly out on Wednesday.
What's your plane game gonna be? Do you read? Watch movies? Sleep?
Man, I usually watch a movie but we're travelling over night to get to y'all so I think I'll just pop a couple of melatonins and try to knock myself out! (laughing) I'm aiming to sleep all through the night and wake up in England, man! (laughing)
Are you planning on doing any sightseeing whilst here or will it be a straight in-and-out?
I wanna get out and see as much as I can. I've got a couple of open slots in my schedule and I want to walk around, see the sights. I'd like to check out a couple of cool gyms, I wanna go to a couple of pubs and some food spots too. Soak up the vibes, you know?
You've been releasing music on Spotify with Big Loud for a year or so now. Do you have a favourite song you've put out so far? Mine would be ‘Jenni' I think.
Man, I don't think I have a favourite because all of them mean something to me. They all have their own time and place. I don't really love one specific song over another right now. I do love to play ‘Pour Me Out' live……… Actually I love to play all of them live, I don't know what I'm talking about! (laughing)
Your latest song, ‘Talk With Me,' is a really raw, Bluesy heartbreak song that really shows off your vocals. Tell me about the inspiration behind it.
‘Talk With Me,' is kinda like a continuation of ‘Pour Me Out.' I was using the same influences but trying to dig just that bit deeper into that Motown influence. I wanted to channel those old school, crooner-classics on that song. You know, the Brenda Lee's and the Willie Nelson's of the world – I wanted to add the choir onto it because I thought that would lift it up even more and make people feel like they were back home in my church in Alabama on a Sunday morning.
For people at C2C in London who might not know much about you yet – how would you describe your sound and style?
I would say they'd need to come to States and go visit where I came from in Alabama. The deep south – whatever they will hear blasting through the speakers in the towns there is what I am. It's the music in the cars on the freeway, in the restaurants and in the churches – it's all a mix of what I grew up listening to.
It's Country, it's Blues, it's Soul and it's R&B – it's what we listen to in the south. I term my music ‘southern sounds,' right? It's everything that makes the south the south, a real mix of sounds and styles.
I love the fact that in Country music in 2025 there are artists like yourself making music like this – you probably wouldn't have had the chance to do this a decade ago.
No, I don't think so. A lot of things have opened up in that time and a lot of people have realised that Soul is a part of Country music. Blues is too, Gospel – it's all connected together. It helped that Chris Stapleton came on the scene and opened things up. There was hints of it in the 90s with artists like Travis Tritt but It's really going strong now in 2025.
You've been an EMT, your've been a firefighter and been deployed in the Navy too. These are all very physically demanding jobs. Do you keep yourself fit? Are you a gym guy?
(laughing) Oh yeah, man! I've recently got back into all that as a way of staying sane! Once an athlete, always an athlete, right? You gotta keep yourself healthy and fit so I definitely like to get into the gym, you got to.
Where does the music fit into this physical background? Did you grow up in a musical family?
I didn't grow up in a musical family but I grew up in a family that went to church a lot. We went to a Baptist church and all of us southern Baptists sung in the church. We sung hymns but no-one played any instruments or anything like that.
When I broke out and went my own way in the world I ended up in the service. I decided to pick up the guitar because I wanted to and because I loved music so much. Most of the time we would all be off on a weekend and we'd make bonfires and have a little barracks party and people would bring their instruments along. We'd play volleyball and sit round the fire singing songs to relax and chill out.
I don't like that Covid happened but something good came out of it, which was me finding my love for playing music and entertaining people. The pandemic brought everything to a halt and forced me to dig into playing the guitar. I looked inside myself a lot during that time – there was so much going on around me that I found that music became a safe haven for me and a respite from the rest of the world.
You relocated to Nashville in 2023. What were the drivers behind that decision and did you suffer from imposter syndrome when you first got there because everyone in that town is so talented?
Yeah. I was stationed on the coast of Mississippi and I was doing cover band shows out there too. I did that for a couple of years, the cover band stuff and I got a little tired of it. I wanted to come to Nashville and write songs so I moved there, got connected with my manager and started setting up some writes.
Once everyone started noticing me in town I did get a little bit of imposter syndrome because everything was moving so quickly – I couldn't believe that something that I loved so much, like music, could bring me to this point in my life. I never thought I'd be able to make a living playing music – I come from small town Alabama and a history of physically demanding jobs and I thought that would be what I'd do for the rest of my life – working doing concrete or construction or something like that. I'm still finding some of the moments surreal – like being able to come over to the UK and play my songs, it hasn't quite sunk in yet, doesn't quite feel real.
You used the word ‘surreal' there – what's been the most surreal moment of your career so far? The Opry debut must be up there, right?
Yeah. I would say the Opry and I would also say being able to go on tour or play shows with other artists that I've admired for years is also pretty surreal! (laughing) I couldn't believe that I got to play the Grand Ole Opry where so many of the greats that I loved played. It's been great, man.
Being able to come over to different countries and play music, do what I love to do, for people who speak different languages, that's really trippy, man, also! (laughing)
Big Loud have got a really diverse set of artists on their roster. From Wallen to HARDY and from Stephen Wilson JR to Charles Wesley Godwin. Is that why you felt like they were a good fit for you?
Oh, definitely. They were so warm and loving right from the very first interaction I had with them. They are pretty much family to me now. When I did look at their roster I was really curious about where they were going because they had Morgan, they have HARDY and ERNEST and those guys but then they had Charles, and Stephen and Zandi Holup and I was, like, wait a minute – this is the perfect spot for me. I feel like I can live between all those artists and all the different sounds and styles.
Man, I love Stephen Wilson Jr, he's my boy, I have so many stories about him, he's got such a good spirit and soul, man.
A lot of artists come over to C2C and use it as a springboard to gain recognition and them they come back and play some shows of their own. Is that something we can expect from you?
I hope so, that would be really cool. It's my first time in England – although I do know I have fans over there because I got so many DMs about coming over! (laughing) We'll see how people respond whilst I'm over there – hopefully people will love my music and that will mean I get the chance to come back over again soon.
Download the official C2C festival app and you'll be able to see when and where Kashus is playing across the whole weekend in London. Apple or Android
