Colt Ford & Creed Fisher

Colt Ford consistently blazes his own trail. By doing so, the Georgia singer, songwriter, rapper, musician, performer, and co-founder and co-owner of Average Joes Entertainment keeps up pace as country’s preeminent independent maverick.

By 2019, Colt built a series of staggering successes as he rose to mainstream notoriety. He notched five consecutive Top 10 debuts on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart with Declaration of Independence bowing at #1 in 2012. Two years later, Thanks for Listening ascended to the Top 10 of the Top 200, with the album reaching #1 on Billboard Rap & Independent charts. Meanwhile, he lobbed six songs onto the Hot Country Songs Chart with “Back” [feat. Jake Owen] going Top 40. Among many accolades, Ford received a nomination in the category of “Vocal Event of the Year” at the Academy of Country Music Awards for “Cold Beer” with Jamey Johnson.

Selling over 3 million albums, attracting millions of followers on social media and hitting 1 billion-plus streams, the country rap pioneer’s dynamic discography spans collaborations with everyone from Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, and Jermaine Dupri to members of No Doubt, Lit, and Lady Antebellum. Additionally, he co-wrote Jason Aldean’s #1 hit “Dirt Road Anthem” and Brantley Gilbert’s #1 hit “Country Must Be Country Wide” as a behind-the-scenes force in the studio. Moreover, Ford’s solo tradition of genre-blurring continued on Love Hope Faith in 2017 by way of cuts such as “Reload” (feat. Taylor Ray Holbrook), his We The People, Volume 1 album and on into his Keys to the Country EP in 2021 with Kevin Gates, RVSHVD and more.

Country music’s beloved antihero Creed Fisher puts the FU in Fun on his album Rebel in the South. “It definitely has a bit more rock country sprinkled in than Whiskey and the Dog, which consisted of honky tonk, twang,” Fisher says of the vibe. “That stuff is on Rebel in the South, but the balance is a little different.” Put another way, he explains, “Whiskey and the Dog was more Merle Haggard-ish, and more ballad driven. I feel like Rebel in the South is more Brantley Gilbert, more county rock.”

Along with celebrating blue collar sensibilities, patriotism and fun-loving simple pleasures that are staples of Fisher’s music, this record also features a dose of unapologetic poking at the hornet’s nest otherwise known as the mainstream country music hypocrisy. Timing is everything, and Fisher declares “This was the perfect album to say what I had to say. If I’d said it three or four albums ago – they wouldn’t have heard it.” He’s confident the music and messages on Rebel in the South will not fall on deaf ears, “They’re gonna hear this.”

Fisher credits the whole tone of Rebel in the South originating with the song “Cuz I’m Country,” which is the first single. “My buddy sent me this song he wanted me to help write, and I was like, ‘Man this is about us!’ Everything came together into a production that exceeded even his own high expectations.