‘Most wanted man in country’ coming to Rupp Arena in early December

Country music’s newest superstar, Morgan Wallen, will be hosting a concert with HARDY and ERNEST at Rupp Arena on Dec. 4.

Tickets for the show go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. at Ticketmaster.com. More information can be found at Rupparena.com.

Labeled as “the most wanted man in the country” by The New Yorker, Wallen has rapidly climbed the ranks as one of country music’s most popular artists in the last couple of years. He has over seven billion on-demand streams, multiple platinum certificates and four straight No. 1 hits, such as “Whiskey Glasses,” which was Wallen’s five-time platinum breakout track.

Wallen’s second album, “Dangerous: The Double Album,” sat at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart for 10 consecutive weeks. It stayed in the Top 10 for 33 weeks and recorded the biggest streaming week for a country album ever.

The album features popular tracks like “7 Summers” and “Wasted On You” — both of which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart — as well as the platinum song “More Than My Hometown” and four-time platinum “Heartless,” on which Wallen collaborated with Diplo.

Wallen was 2020’s CMA New Artist of the Year and iHeartRadio’s Best New Country Artist.

Wallen’s career took a hit when he was caught on camera calling his friend a racial slur in February 2021. Cumulus Media, which controls more than 400 radio stations in the United States, removed Wallen’s music from its rotation. Others also acted. SiriusXM, iHeartMusic and Pandora also removed Wallen’s music from its playlists. Wallen later apologized for the incident, calling his use of the term “ignorant.”

In a July interview, Wallen said that he didn’t use the word in a derogatory way.

“I think I was just ignorant about it,” he said in an ABC interview. “I don’t think I sat down and was, like, ‘Hey, is this right or is this wrong?’”

Country music star Morgan Wallen opens up about his ‘ignorant’ use of racial slur

HARDY broke out in 2020 with “A ROCK,” “an album that owes as much to AC/DC as George Jones,” per Billboard. He was a candidate for the 2021 CMA New Artist of the Year award and collaborated with Wallen for the three-time platinum song, “Up Down.”

In total, HARDY has helped produce nine No. 1 singles since 2018, including Blake Shelton’s “God’s Country” and his own No. 1 “ONE BEER,” his first-ever platinum song.

Like HARDY, ERNEST has also collaborated with Wallen. He was a part of the No. 1 hit “More Than My Hometown” as well as Florida Georgia Line’s “I Love My Country,” Chris Lane’s “Big, Big Plans,” and Sam Hunt’s “Breaking Up Was Easy In The ’90s.”

Racial slur costs chart-topping country music star Morgan Wallen spot on radio stations