Twelve years after releasing his first album, the man known as Big Smo has become a superstar. He mashes country and rap into what the mammoth Tennessee native affectionately calls hick-hop. After ...

It began when prisoners from urban jails were moved to new "supermax" facilities in rural Appalachia. The racial tension between white corrections officers and black inmates could be felt throughout ...

Nelly’s “Country Grammar (Hot Shit),” the lead single from his 2000 album Country Grammar, is comfortably at home in 2025. He mentions AI, Donald Trump, and lighting up and taking a puff of chronic, ...

The microgenre that is country rap has a resurgence in popularity every so often — remember Bubba Sparxxx? Cowboy Troy? It usually gains a bit of media attention, makes some rap fans say, “Hey, ...

After Big Smo arrived onstage at Brighton Music Hall on Friday night, he informed the room that he’d prepared for the occasion. “What up,” he said. “I had to take a speech class to be able to say ...