Tanner Adell on her unprecedented Western culture -meets-R&B blend

Tanner Adell sits in a booth in The Gulch's Saint Añejo restaurant drinking a Maraschino cherry and grenadine-laden Shirley Temple, more concerned about the potential of flying to London to watch Beyoncé than about TikTok commenters questioning the authenticity of her love of country music.

The Columbia Records-signed singer-songwriter will play Chicago's Windy City Smokeout the same day the icon visits Nashville's Nissan Stadium.

But her own star is now on the rise.

Her debut major-label mixtape, "T.," drops on July 21.

Among many things listeners to its eight tracks (including previously released, country-leaning, caustic songs of heartbreak, "I Hate Texas" and "FU-150") will learn is that if you see her carrying a Birkin bag in the vicinity of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, there's a 100 percent chance that the Buffalo wing sauce carried in said bag will be slathered on the original recipe chicken she's likely to order.

Before she was a rising pop star with Southern and Western roots, the former Mormon completed her two-year mission commitment in Stockholm, Sweden.

Yes, there she was, a bi-racial native of Lexington, Kentucky, adopted by Manhattan Beach, California residents with familial roots in Star Valley, Wyoming. A fluent speaker of Swedish, she taught young Swedes about the virtues of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saint movement.

Add to her unique personal narrative decade of formal piano training and self-taught time with the guitar, time spent in Utah Valley University's commercial music program and 18 months in Music City.

If thinking Adell only to be a Tik Tok provocateur mixing reparational equity and ribald antics with steel guitars and cowboy boots, she has aptitude equal to her attitude.

Adell's success will be linked to how quickly country music is willing to accept that her brand of music is fundamentally built within the genre's familiar lifestyle tropes of faith, family and fun.

In recent generations, pop artists have failed at leading the mainstream into country music.

They have not succeeded because, in eras before streaming and digital-first culture, they were frozen out of top-tier, peak-visible access to the genre's lily-white and comfortably homogenized pinnacle.

Yes, Tanner Adell has only 360,000 followers between Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. However, on TikTok alone, she has achieved over 5.8 million likes on her posts, plus nearly 400 million views associated with her name on the platform.

For comparison's sake, that's 60 percent more views than Top-10 charting breakout Academy of Country Music New Female Artist of the Year nominee -- and fellow Sony-affiliated label-mate -- Megan Moroney.

When asked what has keyed her success, she eschews the apparent notion that it's a race and pop culture-related play where non-white and new to the genre fans of country music are glomming onto her sound and style.

On initial listen, the musical catalog that has led to her debut mixtape would explain otherwise.

Songs like 2022's "Country Girl Commandments" feature lines about carrying GLOCK 22 police service pistols in Louis Vuitton purses in songs featuring production from the late 90s Mutt Lange and Shania Twain rock-to-country radio playbook. The same can be said about the country-rock stylings of 2021's "Honky Tonk Heartbreak." In particular, the song non-specifically lyrically namechecks DanielXDiamond's now high-end retail-available, rhinestone-fringed denim jackets.

Explore deeper and "Buckle Bunny" is a sensual, trap-ready and 808-laden anthem about the virtues of dating young urban cowboys.

"My life is Wyoming rodeo culture but also Los Angeles glam. I'm just as soon to get tricked into licking a salt block for cows and horses as I am to get a complete set of custom nails," the performer jokes.

She's an unprecedented artist doing remarkable things in wild, new territory unimaginable in mainstream country music's century-long history.

"A generation of people are super-respectful of classic country music, but also admire Beyoncé as much as I do -- and how she's explored what country music sounds like in the context of R&B, plus are intrigued by the Western culture that's, again, authentically part of my life."

In Adell's mind, the accomplishment of pop culture being defined, top-down, by this demographic has the genre's best interests at heart.

"Country music deserves to soundtrack hard-working people from all walks of life aspiring to -- even if for a moment -- an approachable, fun and sometimes, yes, glamorous lifestyle."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tanner Adell on her unprecedented Western culture -meets-R&B blend