From country to Americana, rock to pop, 10 Nashville artists you need to know in 2024

A pair of factors will go a long way to determine which artists will break out in Nashville's ultra-competitive music scene.

One, of course, is social media appeal.

But the almighty algorithm is only part of the story these days. Acts like 2023 breakouts like Oliver Anthony and Charles Wesley Godwin weren't built solely on memorable snippets on Instagram reels or TikTok posts.

They put in the work and created a merger between the margins and the mainstream.

An artist can stand out with skills honed in Music City's songwriting rooms or consistently onstage at venues great and small like The Bluebird Cafe and Brooklyn Bowl, the Analog at Hutton Hotel, or Whiskey Jam at Whiskey Row.

Nashville's best 2024 up-and-comers are uniquely suited for live concerts, radio consumption and viral appeal. Here are 10 to watch.

Renee Blair

The co-songwriter of HARDY and Lainey Wilson's 2023 country mega-smash "wait in the truck" successfully hid her pregnancy from concert stages, this St. Louis native is poised as a pop-crossover-ready country performer. The reason? Her appeal is similar to what keyed the "bro-country" boom and eventual resting place on top of country and pop's chart-topping heap. Blair's forthcoming project is built around her "Hillbetty" persona, which embodies how country's modern mainstream, like Blair, is equally well-versed in the catalogs of Alan Jackson and Lil Wayne as Shania Twain and Carrie Underwood, while also -- as she noted in a 2023 Tennessean story -- occasionally loving being "bad, dangerous, edgy and wild as hell."

Kashus Culpepper

The last years saw a cultural reckoning in Americana music, with an increasingly diverse group of set of artists finding success in a genre that gained popularity behind the music of Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson over the previous decade.

Alabama native Kashus Culpepper could find similar traction in the sonic space occupied by Chris Stapleton's country influence. Culpepper is a Navy veteran who claims Stevie Wonder, Howlin' Wolf, and the previously-mentioned "Cold" vocalist as influences. Interest in Music City from all corners -- radio and streaming-ready labels, YouTube content creators, honky-tonk hip fanatics and more -- is high. Songs like "Who Hurt You" delivered him to Nashville as a frequent visitor in 2023. 2024's forthcoming material could offer more significant acclaim.

Lola Kirke

Your effortlessly cool homegirl's favorite actress and countrified rock star is on this list. Her name is Lola Kirke.

Rosanne Cash and Elle King co-sign her, plus she's written with songwriters behind hits for Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde, Midland, Nate Smith, Lainey Wilson and Bailey Zimmerman. Intelligent and self-aware country performers equally comfortable stumbling out of dive bars in East Nashville as they are unafraid of Lower Broadway are becoming more familiar to the genre's mainstream. Thus, Kirke will be spending 2024 Fender jamming and line-dancing from Los Angeles' Sunset Strip to New York's Lower East Side -- while teaching her fans to appreciate boys who "say y'all."

Meg McRee

No country artist will spend more time on the road in the next two years as a supporting act for the genre's emerging radio, streaming and touring stars like Marcus King, Ashley McBryde and Lainey Wilson than Georgia-born multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and Vanderbilt graduate Meg McRee. While doing that work in Aug. 2023, she said, "I started doing internships in the music business because I convinced myself that just being around it would be enough for me. One day during my senior year, I was typing someone else's lyrics into a computer and something inside of me snapped. I knew I would always regret it if I didn't at least try." Her latest track, "The Moon," features Hillary Lindsey and Lori McKenna, two-thirds of the iconic "Love Junkies" songwriting team. She tried -- and she's succeeding.

Catie Offerman

Being a Universal Music Group-signed CMT Next Woman of Country class member doesn't entirely place Catie Offerman's stylings in the best context. Sometimes, plaudits in Music City seem as easy to stack as cordwood. However, Offerman is a thinking woman's songwriter and a Texas native whose 2023 debut radio single "I Just Killed A Man" stands out nine months after its release because of the frank manner in which the performer noted to The Tennessean that "the edge of heartbreak is more relatable to people than murder." In a growing catalog of crossover and radio-ready performers like Megan Moroney, Hailey Whitters and Lainey Wilson, Offerman provides a similar appeal with her own distinct approach presentation.

Crystal Rose

Blues, rhythm and blues, and rock n' roll are thriving in Nashville. And all three can be found in the music made by Kansas City-born and Nashville-based Crystal Rose. If you like SZA's "Kill Bill," listen to Rose's "Mad Black Woman." She's also competent at hitting vocal runs or snarling out pop and rock heaters reminiscent of Lady Gaga, Alanis Morrissette, Nirvana, and Sia. She's a veteran artist not new to this, but if she's new to you, get familiar -- quickly. If the scene North Nashville had in 1964 were available to the quality of modern era Nashville's Black creatives making sounds desiring community and redefining culture, Crystal Rose would be a headliner.

SistaStrings

SistaStrings, the classically trained cellist and violinist sister duo of Chauntee and Monique Ross, are poised for a big year. The Americana Music Association award winners are co-signed by Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Joni Mitchell, Margo Price, Maggie Rogers, Ed Sheeran, and Allison Russell; they also have a half-decade-long creative catalog. Meeting the call of creating to their heightened standard of excellence will allow their stardom to emerge.

Zach Top

For the past year, every honky-tonk in midtown Nashville has buzzed about bluegrass and 90s country-loving Washington State native Zach Top. He's already being produced by Carson Chamberlain (George Strait, Keith Whitley), has been on tour with Lainey Wilson, debuted at the Grand Ole Opry and secured a publishing deal with Bob Doyle's Major Bob Music. Beware of the sawdust flying from your speakers and desires to make Alan Jackson comparisons when hearing his two-stepper "Sounds Like The Radio."

Lauren Watkins

Writers of dozens of No. 1 country singles get goosebumps and their voices shoot up an octave when discussing the star potential of Nashville native and Big Loud-signed singer-songwriter Lauren Watkins. Her introductory 2023 album saw her destitute, heartbroken, drinking grain alcohol, sleeping in her makeup and smoking Camel Blue cigarettes. That was followed by an EP that found her no less heartbroken, but via songs like "Cowboys on Music Row" and "Fly On The Wall," talking about guys who "give a damn" and wanting to "be a fly on the wall to learn how to "not [run off]" those kinds of men. She's a storyteller capable of carving a brilliant path.

Weirdo Workshop (Louis York / The Shindellas)

Via acts like Jessie Murph, country's pop moment casting eyes on Music City is already yielding soulful smash hits by commingling the genre with R&B's modern influences. However, out in Franklin, Louis York (the tandem of Chuck Harmony and Claude Kelly) are churning with creative juices already translating to critical and commercial success. At the same time, their frequent collaborators, The Shindellas, are a timeless-feeling top-10 R&B charting girl group. Their blend of dramatic stage presence, awareness of three generations of girl-group history and a willingness to expand stereotypes make the quintet's "Weirdo Workshop" collective worth watching.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville music: Rock, country, classical, pop artists to know in 2024