Morgan Wallen: The Country Star In Southern Soul Mash-Ups
Originally published in Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 Singles.
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .
July 2025
....2. "Dangerous / Wetter"----Shawn Walka Mash-Up feat. Morgan Wallen, Erika Shevon & Twista
The first couple of times I heard it, I didn't like it. By the third time, I was hopelessly addicted. The thousands of comments on its
original YouTube video with 13 million views (there are more videos with additional millions) cry out with the the public's gratitude---not to mention wishes it could be bought retail. The "Wetter" segments were originally recorded with the rapping done by Twista. And it was when I began to see the insertion of country artist Morgan Wallen as a rapper that the lights went on and I went limp with regard for the mash-up's genius. Read more about Wallen, country/southern soul cross-over and more in Daddy B. Nice's
Morgan Wallen guide.
Listen to Morgan Wallen, Erika Shivon and Twista singing "Dangerous / Wetter" on YouTube.
July 1, 2025
Daddy B. Nice's Original Profile:
Okay. Flash forward to 2025, a year in which the artistic headwinds seemingly blew country influences away. 803Fresh exploded on the southern soul scene as no artist since King George had. "Boots On The Ground" and its accompanying line dance were everywhere. Then came Mike Clark Jr.'s "Keep On Steppin'" and its line dance and then S. Dott's & Tonio Armani's "Cowgirl Trailride" and its line dance. Meanwhile, hip-hop's Snoop Dogg was pulling King George and Tonio Armani into a Death Row Records sampler, and Lacee was pulling off a sophisticated #1 single ("Cheat Code") that was as un-country as could be.
Still, just as it looked like country singers crossing over into southern soul had had its day, in came a a DJ "mash-up" entitled href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_zKBlZtsUg" target="_blank" class="guidetext" >"Dangerous X Wetter" starring country singer Morgan Wallen. For the uninitiated, a "mash-up" is an appropriation and reconfiguration by a deejay or basement producer (in this case Shawn Walka) of two or more separate, existing songs (in this case, Twista's "Wetter" performed by Erika Shivon and Morgan Wallen's "Dangerous". The "Dangerous X Wetter" mash-up videos have collectively attained some twenty million views, give or take a million, and are still rising with no end in sight. And there's something even veteran YouTubers will find astounding. One of those music videos of "Dangerous X Wetter" has 5,514 comments. What kind of song draws in thousands of people wanting to comment? That's unheard of!
I'd never heard of Morgan Wallen (who IS well known) until a month ago. In fact, when country/southern soul crossover Curt The Country Man (my man!) recorded a song called "Two Beers" in 2024, he toasted two bonafide Country performers whose names I couldn't catch. I caught the first name "Morgan" and the last name beginning with a "W" but it sounded like "Wiley" and despite googling possibilities for a couple of hours I was never successful at pinning down the name. Turns out that mystery man was Morgan Wallen.
--Daddy B. Nice
About Morgan Wallen: The Country Star In Southern Soul Mash-Ups
July 1, 2025:
Just a little orientation to give context to what is going on with acclaimed country artist Morgan Wallen and southern soul:
From Daddy B. Nice's "Southern Soul 2024: The Year In Review:
It was the year "country" integrated into southern soul.
Southern soul singers---which is to say African-American singers---had historically dabbled, gone back-and-forth, and even migrated like the great
Ray Charles to world-wide fame via country music. But in spite of their roots in rural America, the two genres' stylistic differences had remained seemingly incompatible. Either you heard it on a country station or a rhythm & blues station, and if you were a black singer singing country, you had to make it in the (white) country market. That all changed in 2024, albeit not without the confusion and outcry that accompanies any tectonic musical shift, and the main reason was a young black singer named
Cecily Wilborn.
Wilborn had crashed the southern soul scene in 2023 with her hit song, "Southern Man," reprised later that year in a duet with
West Love that further burnished its reputation. In 2024
Cecily took the country vibes that worked to perfection in "Southern Man" to a level never before seen in southern soul in the take-no-prisoners, country-styled, quasi-acapella anthem "Red Cup Blues," in effect daring southern soul deejays to either accept or reject it. Later in the year, she returned with yet another country/southern soul hybrid hit single, "Living For The Weekend," blending country instrumental motifs with lyrical references that only avid southern soul music fans could truly appreciate:
"Play me some Johnnie Taylor
Or some Marvin Sease...
If I play that Tina Turner
He know I'm about to fight,
If I play that Barry White
He know he get lucky tonight."
Meanwhile, a much lesser-known, less industry-sophisticated singer named
Curt The Country Man came to the attention of
Daddy B. Nice via a YouTube video from late 2023. The song was "Back Roads," originally published under the name
GMB Li Curt with assistance from the rapper
ShawtyMac. Although infused with the soul and spirit of a southern soul singer, the vocal was stylistically pure, unadulterated country. The video, replete with horses and the kind of country scene that characterized dozens of popular,
Jeter Jones, trailride-influenced song videos throughout the year, featured the cowboy-hatted Curt doing a perfect back flip out of the bed of a pickup truck onto a Mississippi-green pasture.
Marcellus The Singer, the wunderkind of southern soul mentioned above, recognized the song's worth and partnered with Curt (now called
Curt The Country Man) on a remix called "Back Road" (deleting the "s"), inserting a southern soul verse in place of the rap stanza. Due to
Curt's lack of marketing savvy, the tune never achieved the success of
Wilborn's material, but "Back Roads" struck like lightning amongst southern soul insiders, with
Daddy B. Nice comparing it favorably in historical significance to
J-Wonn's "I Got This Record". And
Ciddy Boi P ("This Is Texas:
Beyonce Reply," "One More Day"),
Tucka ("Take It Slow") and other artists paid it subtle homage by imitation.
And yet, I could never quite throw off the feeling I was foisting "country" upon a southern soul public that really didn't want to hear it. I sent out a survey to southern soul deejays asking how they felt about country's incursions into the southern soul. Not a lot replied, but those who did were overwhelmingly positive and relayed their listeners enjoyed and club-danced to the country cross-overs. But I never quite banished my doubts until I heard Morgan Wallen unexpectedly country-singing-rapping
"Dangerous / Wetter" to zillions of TikTokers and YouTubers in the year 2025. And I ask the southern soul audience this.
If country isn't compatible with southern soul, why are southern soul digital creatives blending country with rhythm and blues?
Here's one last (at least for now) iron for the fire.
There's a new mash-up with Morgan Wallen in it. It's "Lovers & Friends," one of the greatest melodies in all of hiphop and southern soul. And, once again, I'm addicted. I can put it on repeat forever. While Wallen is given the body of the song in "Dangerous/Wetter," with Erika Shivon's "Will you be my Daddy?" book-ending at the beginning and end, the format is reversed in "Lovers & Friends/Sunrise," with Wallen taking the intro and coda and Usher, Ludacris and the rest taking the middle.
Listen to the DJ TFITZZ mash-up of Morgan Wallen, Usher, Ludacris & Lil' Jon singing "Lovers & Friends/Sunrise" on YouTube.
I guarantee you won't be able to resist playing it more than once.
---Daddy B. Nice
