How did Post Malone become the year’s biggest guest star?

Malone scored his first hits doing hip-hop cosplay, however he by no means had a lot curiosity in rap or in being a rapper. Nearly as quickly as he swagger-jacked his manner into the monoculture, the artist born Austin Put up set off on a path nearer to his coronary heart, swerving his Bentley by a genre-agnostic pop sphere and, like every scenester value his salt, leaping lanes and crashing into the zeitgeist.

Now, after a handful of albums filled with breezy pop-rock odes to self-medication and self-loathing, Put up Malone goes nation.

It’s not a wholly shocking transfer: His albums have more and more flirted with the timbres and tropes of nation, within the spurs-on-the-snare stomp of “Go Flex,” the gently strummed orchard metaphor of “Lemon Tree” and a number of other country-cousin pop tunes on final 12 months’s “Austin.”

The inevitability of Malone’s nation flip intensified final 12 months, when he appeared on a remix of “Dial Drunk,” by rising stomp-clap banjo picker Noah Kahan. Like pop’s main tradition vulture, Drake, Malone jumped on the bandwagon simply in time to say he was holding the reins. Quickly, Malone started teasing collaborations with nation megastars Luke Combs, contemporary off a canopy of probably the greatest songs ever written, and Morgan Wallen, a wannabe outlaw with a pinched twang and hassle with alcohol. Then, he made his newest case for bland ubiquity by drawling vowels on Beyoncé’s brand-friendly “Levii’s Denims,” a head-scratching collaboration that even Nile Rodgers and The-Dream couldn’t save.

Malone is a savvy navigator, and he is aware of his stuff. He name-dropped nation revivalists Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers and Colter Wall on — the place else — Joe Rogan’s podcast, and, through the years, his selection in nation cowl songs has been pitch-perfect — Simpson’s “You Can Have the Crown,” Toby Keith’s “As Good as I As soon as Was,” Brad Paisley’s “I’m Gonna Miss Her” — even when he hasn’t been. When he’s strumming and singing nation tunes, Malone is heavy on the vibrato however gentle on the gravity.

In November, Malone kicked off his nation coming-out social gathering on the Nation Music Affiliation Awards, becoming a member of Wallen and Hardy for a canopy of Joe Diffie’s “Pickup Man.” Malone outshined each the bro-country star and the butt rocker, and was effectively acquired. (Unsurprisingly, he was spared the backlash that festered into Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.”) However the actual star of the present was a real rapper-gone-country, Jelly Roll, a 39-year-old who sings the nation gospel from the guts and has precise rap bona fides: He was pouring out Southern rap syrup when Malone was making synth-pop parodies for highschool initiatives.

On the street to his nation album, Malone helps kick off the brand new launch by Taylor Swift, who made the crossover from nation to the very best pop heights years in the past. Whereas he’s doing the alternative, he’ll most likely discover success, particularly if he surrounds himself with one of the best collaborators, songwriters and session gamers that Nashville can present. However, inevitably, Malone’s nation dalliances will most likely go down like one of many numerous Bud Lights that has underwritten his profession: with respectable style, however no taste.