Kip Moore

“The minute we’re born, we’re all put on this same racetrack and we’re told, ‘These are the steps: Go to college, then find your Southern gentleman or woman and get married, go have a baby,’” Kip Moore told Apple Music in 2020.But Moore’s whole career has been a monument to not following the obvious path. Born in Tifton, GA, in 1980, he was primed for a career as a hard-rocking country boy after the huge success of his 2011 track "Somethin' 'Bout a Truck" and his 2012 debut LP, Up All Night. But when his next batch of singles failed to make a dent on mainstream radio, Moore scrapped his planned second album and focused on expanding his sound and lyrics: On 2015’s Wild Ones, he opted for Springsteen-style anthems, then explored his emotional shortcomings on its 2017 follow-up, Slowheart. It finally seemed Moore was comfortable being honest with himself and his audience—something he proved when he started speaking out against racism in America, a risky topic to tackle in the country world. On his fourth LP, 2020’s Wild World, he described the man he “shoulda” been: “A cowboy/Livin' in the Black Hills/Livin' on the outside of the law/Yeah, crazier than wild Bill,” he sings on “Southpaw.” That’s all fantasy, though. The real Kip Moore is a power-chord loving, plainspoken seeker who, like many of us, feels a little apart from the crowd—and that’s more than fine with him.