As he did with his breakout single “My Truck,” singer and rapper Breland has enlisted another star collaborator for a remix of his latest single, “Cross Country.” Grammy nominee and 2021 ACM Awards co-host Mickey Guyton steps up to the mic for the alternate version of the song, released on Friday (March 19).
In the original version of “Cross Country,” Breland tells his life story: He grew up in New Jersey, then moved to Atlanta, Ga., and Hollywood, Calif., looking for a place to fit in creatively. On the remix, however, he cedes that second verse to Guyton, who sings about her childhood in Texas: “the Lone Star, always had my heart / Where I got my start, learned to play guitar,” she details.
“Took a couple years and a lotta tears ’til I made my mark / And I started to see who I wanted to be in this world of ours,” Guyton continues. Indeed, the artist has been signed to UMG Nashville for about a decade now, and though she landed in the Top 40 on country radio with her debut single, “Better Than You Left Me,” it’s in the past year that she’s found her lane, delivering important messages in songs including “What Are You Gonna Tell Her?” and “Black Like Me,” the latter of which received a 2021 Grammy Awards nomination.
“Country music is built on songwriting, so I obviously had to tell a little bit of my story in this song, but there are a lot of stories that never get told that need to be told,” Breland said when he first released “Cross Country.” He sees the song has not only his story, but a mission statement for the genre-defying career he’s building.
“Music is one of those things that unites people and gives us common ground,” Breland adds, “and so regardless of where you’re from or what you believe in, what you look like, those moments where you’re listening to a song with someone, or in a group of people, or when you’re creating that song, the boundaries that we were taught to believe in disappear.”
Breland co-wrote “Cross Country” with Will Gittens, Sean Small and Sam Sumser. The song follows his viral hit “My Truck” — which was recently certified platinum by the RIAA and has also been remixed by the artist and Sam Hunt — as well as his self-titled EP, released in May. The New Jersey-born artist has been songwriting since he was a teenager, hustled to make a name for himself while attending Georgetown University, and got his start in the music industry through cuts by rappers YK Osiris and Elhae.
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