Kane Brown

Kane Allen Brown (born October 21, 1993) is an American singer.

His father has been incarcerated since 1996, and he was raised by his single mother.

Sometimes homeless, Brown's family moved around northwest Georgia when he was younger from Rossville to Fort Oglethorpe to LaFayette before finally settling in Red Bank, Tennessee.

As a result, he attended many schools, among them Lakeview Fort Oglethorpe High School in Fort Oglethorpe, where he sang in the choir with Lauren Alaina, the runner-up on Season 10 of American Idol.

He also attended Red Bank, Ridgeland, and Soddy Daisy High School.

After graduation, he lived with his grandmother, who had also helped raise him.

Brown grew up listening to country music but became interested in R&B music in middle school.

However, after almost winning a school talent show in 11th grade with a rendition of Chris Young's "Gettin' You Home", he began to perform country music.

He auditioned for both American Idol and The X Factor USA after the success of his school friend Lauren Alaina on American Idol.

He was chosen for The X Factor USA after an audition in 2013 but left the show when its producers wanted to include him in a boy band.

After that, he decided to post his cover versions of popular songs online.

In 2014, Kane Brown began posting videos of his covers of songs by Brantley Gilbert, Billy Currington, Alan Jackson, and other singers on social media.

He acquired a following for his homemade videos on Facebook.

His cover of Lee Brice's "I Don't Dance" was one early video that gained wide attention.

In 2014, Brown raised funds via crowdfunding site Kickstarter to produce a six-song EP, which he recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, at the home studio of Noah Henson, guitarist for Brantley Gilbert.

A single from the EP, "Don't Go City on Me", was first released on October 22, 2014, and reached number 43 on the Country Digital Songs chart.

First garnering a mass following on social media, he released his debut extended play (EP) Closer in June 2015, and followed it up with the single, "Used to Love You Sober" in October of that year.

Released on September 30, 2015, his cover of George Strait's "Check Yes or No" went viral and received more than seven million views.

His number of followers on Facebook quickly reached more than a million, leading to a teaser clip for his own single "Used to Love You Sober" hitting one million views in less than three hours upon its release on October 8, 2015, and then reaching more than 11 million views in two weeks.

Brown was initially signed to Zone 4 with Jay Frank as his first manager.

The EP, titled Closer, was released on June 2, 2015, and debuted on the Top Country Albums chart at number 22, selling 3,200 copies in its debut week.

Brown released a new single "Used to Love You Sober" on his birthday (October 21) in 2015, and the song was spotlighted on Zane Lowe's Beats 1.

It reached number two on the Country Digital Songs chart based on just two days of sales, with 38,000 copies sold.

The release of the single also pushed his EP Closer up the chart to number 22 on the Top Album Sales chart.

A second song, "Last Minute Late Night", was released on November 4, 2015, and debuted on the Country Digital Songs chart at number nine, with 26,000 copies sold.

Another single, "I Love That I Hate You", followed three weeks later on November 30, 2015, and sold 17,000 copies in the first week.

After Brown signed with RCA Nashville in early 2016, the song was included on his second EP and major label debut, Chapter 1 in March 2016.

He released his eponymous debut studio album later that year in December.

Martha Earls became his manager in 2016.

Brown opened for Florida Georgia Line on their summer 2016 Dig Your Roots Tour and collaborated with Chandler Stephens on a song they wrote together, "Can't Stop Love", which released on February 12, 2016.

He signed with Sony Music Nashville on January 27, 2016, and records under the RCA Nashville label.

His first EP under the label, titled Chapter 1, released on March 18, 2016.

It includes the singles "Used to Love You Sober" and "Last Minute Late Night" and debuted at number nine on the U.S. Billboard 200 and at number three on the Top Country Albums chart, selling 30,000 units (23,000 in traditional albums) in its first week.

On June 17, 2016, "Ain't No Stopping Us Now" was released as a promotional single ahead of his debut full-length album.

"Thunder in the Rain" was released as the debut radio single from the album on August 3, 2016, and Brown headlined his own Ain't No Stopping Us Now Tour produced by Monster Energy and Outbreak Presents starting on November 3, 2016.

The album spawned the single "What Ifs" (featuring Lauren Alaina), and in October 2017, Brown became the first artist to have simultaneous number ones on all five main Billboard country charts.

Brown released his second album, Experiment, in November 2018, which became his first number one album on the Billboard 200.

Brown was raised in rural northwest Georgia and in the Chattanooga, Tennessee, area.

He is multiracial, with a white mother, Tabatha Brown, and an African-American father who is also part Cherokee.

In 2018, he told People magazine he did not know he was biracial until he was 7 or 8 years old: "I thought I was full white... I found out that I was biracial, and I still wasn't thinking anything of it, but then I started getting called the N-word ... I learned what it meant, and that's when it started affecting me. I got in fights over it when I was little."