Kashus Culpepper, a 27-year-old Central Alabama native, plays a brand of soul music so comfortably familiar to the broader American musical tradition that it is primarily responded to with the type of heartwarming assent usually reserved for receiving the Holy Spirit during a Sunday morning sermon.
“Yeah, that’s Pastor McGhee,” the Big Loud-signed singer-songwriter said of the Baptist preacher who initially inspired his musical stylings.
His remarks came during a backstage interview shortly before debuting at the Grand Ole Opry on a recent December evening.
“Pastor was the first taste I ever had of hearing somebody sing hymns so hard and with so much soul and spirit that he sweated through towels and touched people’s souls,” Culpepper continued, smiling broadly beneath a photo of Johnny and June Carter Cash.
Listen to songs like his 2023-released “Who Hurt You” and chill bumps on your arms. A year after putting the song out, sweat glistened on his forehead in the Opry’s circle as he powered through his first appearance at one of country music’s most vaunted venues.