Houchins’ pioneering work has had a long tail; its effects can be heard in Florida Georgia Line, Sam Hunt, Luke Bryan and plenty of other country performers who sprinkle hip-hop into their sound and presentation. And country-rap is having a mainstream moment now thanks to Atlanta rapper Lil Nas X, whose unlikely hit “Old Town Road” rapidly ascended to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, mystifying country insiders and bypassing the usual hip-hop tastemakers.
In an interview on Popcast, the weekly pop music podcast of The New York Times, Houchins discussed the history of country-rap dating to the 1990s and how Lil Nas X fits into its lineage. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What made you explore rural themes on Bubba Sparxxx’s 2001 album “Dark Days, Bright Nights”?
One day he said something which was an epiphany to me. He basically said, “You know what, we really need to make music and talk about where we’re from.” He was from LaGrange, Georgia. I’m from Valdosta, Georgia. Hip-hop has always been an expression of self. People paint what they see, what their reality is. And up to that point, we really weren’t doing that. We said, you know what, let’s make what we know. Let’s be real. But still at the same time, we’re not thinking like this is a country-rap thing. To us, this is a rap record.
And there were legit mainstream hits on that record.
It was kind of a phenomenon. I think we did “TRL” like three times the first month the record was out.
Did you get a sense that it opened the door? Because soon after, you got a trickle of country and hip-hop crossovers coming out of Nashville. In 2004, Nelly and Tim McGraw did their record. The year after that, there was Big & Rich and Cowboy Troy.
Big & Rich and Cowboy Troy, if you think about that whole MuzikMafia thing, it was very hip-hop. It was a clique. That was when we started to get to the point of talking about doing a Colt record.
Colt Ford has had a much vaster influence over the past 10-15 years than he has been formally credited for.
If you look at a lot of the early publicity stuff, we would never say he was a rapper. Because what we want you to do is to put the album in. Even our attorney here, he’ll tell the story over and over again. He put it in and he’s like, it’s pretty good. Then about three songs in it’s, wait a minute, this guy’s rapping! But he’s already hooked.
The first Ford album, “Ride Through the Country,” also has the real ground-shifter song “Dirt Road Anthem,” which became a huge hit when Jason Aldean covered it. Do you think it had to come from a performer like Aldean, who already had a track record of more traditional country music, to get that big?
One hundred percent. Colt and I have had this discussion many times. It’s first impressions. Even if you sing a whole song, you’re still going to be the country-rapper guy, versus it’s a kind of creative decision for Toby Keith, “I Wanna Talk About Me,” or for Jason to do “Dirt Road Anthem” or for Blake Shelton to do “Boys ’Round Here.”
In the early 2010s, I thought every country major label would sign a few country-rappers, but it never happened. What was the internal Nashville resistance to hip-hop, even if it came in a country package?
I don’t really think there’s a resistance in Nashville. People in Nashville get it, understand there’s a business for it and they were always open arms. It was just a matter of getting it through the gatekeepers at radio. Colt would have 50 stations, but we never would get to that point where we would get the whole panel.
Is the Lil Nas X song a country-rap record to you?
Yes, and you want to know why? Because he says it is. Look, if you want to go technical, first off is the mentality there behind it? I think yes. The guy’s from Atlanta, from the South. He knows his subject matter. Check. No. 2, lyrically are country elements in there? Check. And three, musically, the sounds are there. You know, so and so might go, well, you know, it’s a trap beat, it’s got a bunch of 808s …
But half of country has 808s now.
Right. So that’s OK. At the end, what the artist feels like they are, that’s what they are.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.