Inside Kashus Culpepper’s Southern sound.
Editor’s Note: This conversation is part of a series of artist features and interviews from Green River Festival 2026, recorded during this year’s festival in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
When Kashus Culpepper walked onto the Green River Festival stage Friday afternoon, the crowd wasn’t especially large. That isn’t unusual at a festival. People wander in and out of sets all day, stopping for a song before moving on to the next stage. What stood out was how different things looked by the end of his set. Standing near the front early on, then working my way toward the back, I kept noticing the same thing happen. Someone would stop for a song. Then another. Before long, groups that had been walking past were standing still, and the field had quietly filled in. It wasn’t a dramatic moment. It happened slowly, almost without anyone noticing until you looked around and realized the crowd had nearly doubled.
A little while later, after his set, I asked him if he could feel that happening from the stage.
“Oh, it was amazing,” he said. “Everyone was in it. It was a vibe.”
He could have left it there. Instead, he explained what those moments mean to him.
“Being able to see the crowd getting involved with the songs, it seemed like they knew a lot of the songs. That’s always fun, because I feel like we’re all here trying to have fun.
“Not escape the day, exactly, but music just has a way of making you feel good. Just as much as the crowd makes the band feel good, the band makes the crowd feel good. So it’s really cool when we’re all on the same page.
“Sometimes you don’t get that. People might not know you. But even in places where they don’t know you, sometimes the crowd is just into the music. They’re like, ‘We don’t know who you are, but the music is vibing.’ Then we’re on the same page. Today, we were definitely on the same page.”
Before the interview, there was one question I knew I wanted answered. Why does he almost always call it Southern music instead of country music? Considering how often artists get asked about genre, I expected something polished. Maybe a carefully crafted explanation about refusing labels. Instead, he answered by talking about home.
“To me, because of where I grew up and with my family, I grew up in the South. I’m a big fan of music in general. I kind of just gravitate toward music.
“Growing up in my town, country music and blues music were all around me. Folk music was all around me. And with my family, I had a lot of soul and R&B and gospel influence because that’s just my family.
“I took all that music in growing up because I just love music. So when I started doing my own thing, it was about combining textures from a lot of different genres. But to me, all of that music is just Southern music. Country music is Southern music. Blues, gospel, soul, jazz, it’s all Southern music.”
The more he explained, the less it sounded like a mission statement. It was almost common sense.
If you grow up hearing those styles side by side, why wouldn’t they naturally live together in your own music?
Listening back through Act I after that conversation, I found myself hearing the record a little differently. There are moments that lean toward country. Others pull from blues or soul. Gospel harmonies appear naturally because those sounds have always been part of his life. Rather than trying to blend genres for the sake of originality, Culpepper simply seems to be making music that reflects the environment that raised him.
When I mentioned that calling it Southern music probably keeps people from trying to put him into a single category, he smiled.
“But I still love the community of country music. It’s still country. It’s still soul music, still gospel. I can understand how people say it might be a little more of this or a little more of that, but that’s their opinion. I just tell them it’s Southern music.”
It was probably the simplest answer of the afternoon, but maybe also the most revealing. The same honesty came through when we started talking about Act I.
The title naturally makes you wonder whether Act II is already waiting around the corner. That’s where I expected the conversation to go. Instead, Culpepper explained that he isn’t finished introducing people to this chapter yet.
“Not soon. I think we’re just building on this universe. I just released a new EP today, which is an extension of the album Act I: Summer Nights.
“It’s just building on this universe of who I am and the different sides of who I am. I’m trying to show everybody that I’m being as authentic as possible, and that I love so many sides of music.
“I think I’m just going to keep going with Act I for now, keep showing people different facets of myself. Then Act Two, or whatever that next vision is, might come later down the line. But right now, this is a good way to show people who I am.”
That answer changed the way I thought about both releases. Before talking with him, I assumed Summer Nights was simply the next project. Instead, he described it as another window into the same world. It also explained why I’d kept returning to Act I over the last few weeks. Most albums give me everything they’re going to give after two or three listens. Once I’ve written about them, I usually move on. This one kept revealing something different. Sometimes it was a melody. Sometimes it was a guitar line buried in the mix. Sometimes it was hearing a lyric differently after living with it a little longer. Hearing him describe the EP as an extension of that same musical universe suddenly made perfect sense.
For someone whose career has accelerated as quickly as his has, there isn’t much urgency in the way he talks about success.
Six years ago, during the pandemic, he picked up a guitar because he loved music. Today he’s touring nationally, playing festivals like Green River, and introducing his songs to audiences across the country. I asked whether that still surprises him.
“Yeah, it’s very strange,” he admitted. “I started something I just wanted to do because I loved it, and now it’s my career. So it’s strange at times, but it’s really cool.”
There wasn’t any speech about dreams coming true or overnight success. Just a quiet acknowledgement that life changed faster than he expected. Near the end of our conversation, I asked one final question. When someone discovers Kashus Culpepper for the first time, whether it’s at Green River or somewhere else, what does he hope they leave with? His answer tied together almost everything we’d talked about over the previous fifteen minutes.
“I want them to be able to find themselves in my music, whether it’s in the lyrics, or if they find a piece of the music they can relax to, dance to, or see themselves in.
“Maybe it heals some trauma they’ve got. Maybe it gets them to dance. Maybe it helps them relax. That’s why I do it, because that’s what music has done for me my whole life.
“When I listened to Al Green when I was eight or nine, I didn’t know why I understood it, and I didn’t know why it made me feel happy. I didn’t know why the Allman Brothers made me feel so good, or why all the Stax records hit me the way they did. I just hope people can find something in my music that really helps them in their life.”
Plenty of musicians say they hope people connect with their songs. Watching his set earlier in the afternoon, it didn’t feel generic at all.
I had already watched strangers stop for one song and stay for six. I had watched people who clearly hadn’t planned on seeing Kashus Culpepper leave talking about him. I had listened to someone explain Southern music not as a marketing term but as the sounds that shaped his life.
By the end of the conversation, it seemed obvious that none of those things were separate ideas.
Write songs honestly enough that someone else might recognize a piece of themselves inside them.
Judging by what happened that Friday afternoon, he’s already well on his way.
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