Is Sam Hunt Truly the Drake of Country Music?
EntertainmentSam Hunt, the former college football player turned country hit-maker responsible for love-lorn, hip-hop infused tracks, has been compared to Drake before, in a way that perhaps reveals the mainstream music press’s biases a little too clearly. (They’ve been particularly linked after Hunt covered “Marvin’s Room” in March).
But Hunt’s performance at CMA Fest Thursday night solidified the link; the women in the front row of LP Field screamed for him in a way reminiscent of the fans of the boy bands of the ‘90s, and one of them went home with Hunt’s huge grin in her phone—he’d snapped it without stopping during a song to take a selfie.
“I don’t wanna blow your phone up/I just wanna blow your mind,” Hunt crooned on “Take Your Time,” before getting into his sometimes Macklemore-esque delivery style, the closest he gets to rapping: “And I know it starts with hello/And the next thing you know you’re trying to be nice/And some guys getting too close/Trying to pick you up/Trying to get you drunk.”
This mention of technology and modern communication wasn’t a one-off, but in “House Party,” Hunt’s lyrics recalled Drake’s “Energy.” “You’re on the couch, blowing up my phone/You don’t want to come out, but you don’t want to be alone,” sings Hunt; “I got bitches askin’ me about the code for the wifi/So they can talk about they timeline,” is Drake’s slightly less sweet version.