Mono-Genre Watch: Florida Georgia Line to Tour w/ Nelly
For the first time ever, two high-powered country and rap acts will tour together, as fast-rising country duo Florida Georgia Line will be paired up with hip-hop artist Nelly in an upcoming summer tour of American Ballparks.
The cross-genre pairing first happened when a remix of Florida Georgia Line’s smash hit “Cruise” featuring Nelly was released to radio in April of 2013. The remix propelled the song to eventually become the longest-charting #1 single in this history of country music, and “Cruise” has gone on to sell 6.6 million copies and become the best-selling digital country single of all time.
“Last year we played the ballpark in Lexington, Ky., and it was an epic night,” Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line said in a press release. “We thought how fun would it be to hit several of these and bring the good times to the field!” Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard added, “Summer can’t get here fast enough. Having Nelly and Chris along for the ride is going to make for one big, outdoor party!” Up-and-coming country star Chris Lane will also be a part of the tour. Florida Georgia Line is currently touring as an opener for Jason Aldean.
The Florida Georgia Line/Nelly tour continues the blurring of lines between genres of American music, fueling concerns that music is becoming one big mono-genre with no contrast between popular music forms. Florida Georgia Line has been at the forefront of this trend by adding hip-hop elements into the majority of their songs, and because those songs have become so popular. Florida Georgia Line’s current single “This Is How We Roll” features Tyler Hubbard rapping in some of the verses.
Mono-genre concerns have also been exacerbated by Billboard’s newer chart rules that reward songs played in other formats outside of an artists’ home genre, and also reward songs that perform well on social media. These concerns don’t just come from the country realm, but from many of American music’s major genres, including rap. Just last month Sean Fennessey writing for Grantland, and using the event of Billy Ray Cyrus’s hip-hop version of “Achy Breaky Heart” reaching #11 on the rap charts as an example, said “…rap is more vulnerable than ever to interlopers and synthesists eager to run their sound through the Vitamix of popular music with such speed and force it’s impossible to determine the ingredients … Actual new rap songs are ceaselessly weighing down the genre itself with the junky detritus of other styles.”
Now the mono-genre concerns have reached the live context, and the Nelly/Florida Georgia Line tour may just be the first of many country/rap tours to come.
March 17, 2014 @ 8:47 am
They should call this Gangsters and Douchebags Tour.
March 18, 2014 @ 9:03 am
Oh please, Nelly is about as gangster as Hunter Hayes is.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:10 am
Will Smith wasn’t available?
March 17, 2014 @ 10:33 am
He had a conflict with a Scientology conference he was hosting: “Alien Soul Possession and You”
March 17, 2014 @ 9:11 am
Is Nelly no longer cool enough in the hip-hop world that he has to resort to stuff like this to pay the bills?
March 17, 2014 @ 9:16 am
Nelly is to good of an artist to sink to this low.. Its like Ludacris with justin bieber.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:19 am
define “cool”…
March 17, 2014 @ 9:59 am
Maybe cool wasn’t the word but is Nelly now an afterthought in hip-hop and it’s fans have moved on to the next big thing thus leaving Nelly to end up doing remixes of bad country music and touring with FGL in order to keep some money coming in the door?
March 17, 2014 @ 5:41 pm
Artists who do Honey Nut Cheerios commercials and gangsta up that little bee are always cool.
March 17, 2014 @ 1:24 pm
Well, if he was still cool in the rap world, I am going to go out on a limb and say, he’s definitely not cool now. He better hope that this is successful because his future in real rap is shot.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:15 am
Whoa….Nelly. Really?
Run..Nelly…as fast as you can from ass and no class.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:22 am
I said it in another thread but I’ll say it here. The stuff I scoop out of my cat’s litter box smells like perfume compared to those turds.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:33 am
This is one of those fake news stories…right?
March 17, 2014 @ 9:49 am
I was hoping it was fake news too, but I didn’t see the tag at the end.
As a current college student, I can honestly say that my peers are going to eat this shit up with a spoon. Their whole lives revolve around alcohol and ass.
March 17, 2014 @ 10:40 am
When I was in college, you could say my life (in part) revolved around beer and ass but that didn’t make me listen to crappy music. I can still listen to most of the music I enjoyed in college with my head held high.
March 17, 2014 @ 10:33 am
I like rap music, school rap (Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, De la Soul, etc.) and I stop listening to it since the 2000 so I dont like Nelly. I have also listened to country music since birth and I dont like FGL. So let them be. That southern rap is not rap and FGL is not country music. Its so sad!
March 24, 2014 @ 4:44 pm
Outkast, Killer Mike, UGK, Cee-lo, etc. aren’t rap?
March 17, 2014 @ 10:37 am
The picture in this article is another example of how Brian Kelley always manages to look awkward and out of place.
March 17, 2014 @ 10:40 am
This scares me about today’s music. The thing is, I’m a country fan, and while I don’t go seeking out FGL’s music, I could probably suffer through one of their concerts, if my girlfriend wanted to go or something. However, I have zero interest in watching Nelly, and even the 18 year old version of myself who would loved this pop-country crap would no want to see a Nelly concert at all. I hope there are still people with those values.
March 17, 2014 @ 10:46 am
Kacey Musgraves is opening for Katy Perry this fall, so let’s not act like FGL is the only nominally country band touring with someone from outside the genre.
March 17, 2014 @ 10:53 am
I wrote about the Katy Perry / Kacey Musgraves pairing too, and arguably more in-depth.
https://savingcountrymusic.com/the-great-kacey-musgraves-country-music-experiment
But I think this pairing is significantly more exceptional. Country and pop artists have collaborated and toured together since the beginning of recorded music. Country and rap have always been seen as polar opposites on the musical spectrum, while pop and country have always been side by side.
March 17, 2014 @ 11:39 am
First off, good for Kacy for getting away from the no-talent skin puppet so-called Country acts that would be stuck touring with, second off FGL is NOT a country group.
March 17, 2014 @ 12:17 pm
She’s currently doing concerts with Lady Antebellum and Kip Moore. Plus, she has a couple of upcoming shows scheduled with The Zac Brown Band. She was fine without Katy Perry.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:31 pm
Well sometimes to you gotta pay the bills. Personally I say screw the arenas Kacey and do local bar and smaller venues with meet-n-greets it is much more personal that some stuffed arena where half the fans have to look at a jumbo tronto see you.
March 17, 2014 @ 10:55 am
With any luck, there will be “Bring A D-Cell Battery For Admission” promotions going on at every ball park on the tour .
March 17, 2014 @ 12:26 pm
Damn I hate these ass clowns!
March 17, 2014 @ 4:03 pm
i wonder how much these artists have a word to say when it comes to touring /making concerts. it s probably written in their contracts that they can t not do a tour and have to play with anyone they re told to play with. Just so that it s easier for the money makers to create cross genres and launch a new fad. I might be wrong though. But for the “artists” i think it s more of a sign here and we ll make you a star, but you ve got to do what you re told. Maybe…
March 17, 2014 @ 4:40 pm
With this particular combination, I can’t imagine it was forced on the artists by their labels. Yes, labels many times make the tours, because they’re also the ones that pay for them, and sometimes artists are set up on tours that they may not like or think are ideal. BUt this is so exceptional, I can’t imagine it happening without the approval or feedback from the artists.
March 17, 2014 @ 4:35 pm
You wonder sometimes if The Usual Suspects (Luke, FGL, Blake, Aldean, et al) actually have the motive of pissing off the traditionalist crowd when they do stuff like this. I know Blake for sure has that in mind, but I wonder if all the others do?
March 17, 2014 @ 4:37 pm
I think Florida Georgia Line is completely oblivious to just about everything.
March 18, 2014 @ 12:52 am
I really think it’s a stretch to lump Aldean in with Bryan, FGL, and Blake. I’ve said it on this site before, but Aldean has some seriously great songs on all 5 of his studio albums, many with more traditional leanings than that of his popular songs. Not every track on a Jason Aldean album is 1994 or That’s the Only Way I Know. He’s released many good to great songs in his career. Why, Amarillo Sky, Asphalt Cowboy, Good to Go, Laughed Until We Cried, Back in This Cigarette, Church Pew or Bar Stool, Fly Over States, I Ain’t Ready to Quit, I Don’t Do Lonely Well, Stare at the Sun, Water Tower…and that’s just off the top of my damn head.
He’s a fucking douchebag. No question about it. Cheating on his wife, Standing up for Luke when Zac Brown called him out. Actually fucking releasing 1994. But goddammit…some of you folks needs to actually take a peak at his COMPLETE discography.
If a handful of songs ruins an artist, who’s left over?
March 18, 2014 @ 2:32 am
You have a legitimate point. Jason Aldean, along with Luke Bryan, did have some good songs when they first came on to the scene. But then they both pulled the biggest sellout act since Judas and started putting out utter crap like the songs they have now.
I think that is the worst thing about this whole story of these two. They actually have the talent to put out some good music, yet they keep churning out utter tripe like 1994, My Kind of Night, etc. Now I totally understand that music, like all enterprises, falls under the forces of supply and demand. But come on!
March 18, 2014 @ 8:11 am
OK, I took the challenge. I listened to parts of about five of those songs you listed. Asphalt Cowboy and Church Stool or Bar Stool were ones that I liked and the others at least didn’t grate on me. Still a bit too pop for my taste, but that’s just taste, as I came to country music via rock and roll. These are songs that if I was stuck in the car listening to my wife’s pop country station because it was her turn, I could listen to and eveny somewhat enjoy. A lot of the times, I just want to yell at the radio and have to consciously not shake my head and make negative commentary so as to avoid being called an elitist. Anyway, point taken. He’s got some decent songs. Still…
March 18, 2014 @ 9:16 am
My problem with Aldean is that, while he has recorded decent songs on most of his albums, he never releases them! Except for his first album, he seems to release the weakest and/or most commercially friendly stuff to radio.
He’s one of the biggest stars in country, he doesn’t need to worry about fitting in perfectly so why can’t he just release decent songs off his albums instead of the terrible pandering ones?
Also, he sets trends since he’s a superstar. If he releases decent singles, other artists might follow his lead. When he releases bad singles, all of the new artists try to break through with lame songs.
With great power comes great responsibility. His superstar status means he can start trends. He could put country back on track but he chooses to lead it down a very bad path.
March 21, 2016 @ 1:27 pm
I will sheepishly admit I liked some of Aldean’s songs until this most recent one “Burnin’ it Down”. I watched the video and just about keeled over from nausea.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:00 pm
Where’s a sniper when you need one?
March 17, 2014 @ 9:04 pm
I’m not sure this event is such a big dig deal. From the information I could gather, this a 9 stop “tour” staged in minor league ballparks with no major cities involved.
I don’t see this of any major importance.
From the looks of the cities hosting, this is probably going to be a pretty big deal in a lot of these places.
It’s a chance for FGL to say they have a “headlining tour” and to maintain buzz. I don’t know enough about Nelly to get his angle, but publicity never hurts.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:28 pm
Well this doesn’t surprise me, however I still believe that there is regional music. The music scene in Northern CA is vastly different from Southern CA, let along Georgia or NY because those kinds of acts will never be big, staying true to your voice and your place and genre RARELY gets you mass appeal. And I feel like the labels and the artists on mainstream radio are defining success as mass appeal.
We have a saying in poetry, “The more specific you get the more universal you become.” Because in the end the overlying emotions are all the same but the specifics give it character and place. I have recently been digging a lot of Rory Block and she does TONS of covers but even so somehow she’s give it her own place and voice. Music row is like a salad bar a pizza joint. Watery iceberg lettuce, carrot shavings, colorless tomatoes, and stale croutons…
I’ve given up on mainstream music go local and by that I mean acts and venues local to your area and also acts local to other areas you discover on-line or on the road. Or when they come to your local club. It really is the only way to change the system, not buy into it. That, an educating the young people about why this music IS BAD and not in matter of opinion.
March 17, 2014 @ 9:47 pm
A local venue in my area is having an upcoming show with Love & Theft and Smashmouth. What kind of pairing is that? Who freaking knew Smashmouth still existed??? Also, if anyone really wants to get pissed, listen to Jarrod Niemann’s (Sp?) song titled Donkey. Truly the worst song ever.
March 18, 2014 @ 4:36 am
Well, I know where Riley Cooper will be when this mess hits Philadelphia!
March 18, 2014 @ 5:52 am
I could be wrong, but I think Ol’ Riley has learned his lesson well and won’t again put himself in a situation that might jeopardize his career. He just had himself a career year and I see the Eagles re-signed him for five years, with 8 out of 25 million guaranteed. Not too shabby for a fifth rounder. Also, with the possibility of the Eagles releasing DeSean Jackson, he’s got a chance to put up even bigger numbers in Chip Kelly’s system.
March 18, 2014 @ 7:18 am
some of the singers in groups need to make up their mind of what and who they want to be. just like Taylor Swift it’s hard to figure out if she’s country or if she’s pop. Florida Georgia line needs to keep that rap crap out of country music.
March 18, 2014 @ 7:55 am
This makes me nauseous.
March 18, 2014 @ 9:07 am
Since we’re talking about the mono-genre, Hey Brother just debuted at #59 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.
March 18, 2014 @ 5:37 pm
Wow….yea, lets get a bunch of rednecks and thugs in the same room and get them drunk and see what happens. This is a damn joke. Florida whatever is not country. Keep that pop crap music away from the name Country Artist. Theyre ruining the name. So much for Saving Country Music. Puke
March 18, 2014 @ 10:37 pm
I couldnt agree more man!!!
March 18, 2014 @ 8:56 pm
BULL#^%!…… Saving what! First off, what the hello has either got to do with COUNTRY MUSIC! Second, why are you even writing about this! Third, RAP was an original form done by ROCK and by COUNTRY ARTIST long before what is known as thugs and gangstas started recording it! But none the less, you wouldn’t want to write anything that might hurt someones feelings who choose to grab on to the coat tails of quality talent and music in order to give their weak music a BOOST UP!
March 18, 2014 @ 9:18 pm
1) You first and second points seem to be the same. I thought why I was writing about this was pretty obvious and spelled out in great detail in the article. If you’re alluding that since neither artist has anything to do country music I shouldn’t have written this article, then I completely disagree. That’s the EXACT reason why this article needed to be written.
2) To your third point: https://savingcountrymusic.com/once-and-for-all-spoken-word-is-not-rap
March 19, 2014 @ 3:48 am
Mr. Ronn:
What you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.
At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything close to what can be considered a rational thought. EVERYONE on this message board is now dumber for having read it.
I award you no points. And may God have mercy on your soul!
March 20, 2014 @ 8:14 pm
Personally thought you missed his point on all counts. i can see where the trig went off course and took new path. i’d agree with mr ronn on this one. if one based there report on being pro country they shouldnt be upset when there called on sticking to there own ruels. just sayin’ you are or aint country.
March 18, 2014 @ 10:36 pm
Where is our country music Jesus? This makes me sick.
March 19, 2014 @ 10:12 am
I quit reading when I saw them say “the ballpark in Lexington”. I live in Kentucky and there is not a ballpark in Lexington that could hold the all of their fans (the University of Kentucky has a stadium but it is not big enough). What a bunch of idiots.
March 20, 2014 @ 10:51 am
I don’t see these guys being real good at geography, so maybe they meant “The Ballpark at Arlington.”