For BRELAND, the last few years have been a whirlwind.
He released his debut album, 2022's “Cross Country,” a fluid approach to country music that now feels prescient — it's the direction the genre continues to move in. He toured endlessly, won awards and collaborated with the biggest names in country. He also realized that he needed to slow down, live a little and do some soul-searching in order to identify what would come next.
So he went to Selma, Alabama — once home to his great grandmother and great-great grandmother — to recharge, something his mom did the year prior. The trip would eventually lead to a new EP, the provocatively titled “Project 2024.”
“You think about Selma as this city that, you know, is this kind of vibrant symbol of hope and freedom and the resilience of the American people and the African American community. But unfortunately, it’s a town that has been largely forgotten by most of us,” he says. Repairs from a tornado that hit last year still haven't been made. Storefronts from the '60s lay vacant.
“I went there and saw, ‘Wow, this is a community that I was expecting to be one way and was actually completely different’ and realizing that, you know, I’m one or two decisions away from having grown up in this community," BRELAND says. "And in a lot of ways, historically, at a minimum, these are my people.” It was an eye-opening experience, one that made him realize that he needed to make work that drew attention to Selma — and to write songs that told real stories.
Those exist throughout “Project 2024,” but maybe none as direct as his collaboration with The War & Treaty, “Same Work," the most “straight down the middle, country,” track on the EP, as he describes it.
In the lyrics, BRELAND recounts an experience he had at a meet and greet. A fan told the country star his story: He's a veteran, now out of the service and working as a nurse, providing free health care to other veterans in need.
“He’s like, ‘You and me do the same work.’ And I was like, ‘We definitely don’t. What you do is tactile, like, you are helping people in need.' He was like, ‘That’s what you do.’ He’s like, ‘We do the same work. We do it in different ways. God’s purpose for us is different, but if at the root of what you’re doing is wanting to be able to help people, motivate people, encourage people and show them love? Then we absolutely are doing the same work,'" he retells it.
The story struck a chord. It's the emotional heart of the six-track release, arriving at the end as a reminder of people's potential for good.
So, what about that title, “Project 2024"? BRELAND says it has nothing to do with Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government and society and frequent topic of conversation leading into the presidential election.
“Just having been down to Selma and seeing the experience of those people, you know, I think there are a lot of freedoms that we can’t take for granted. And for me, I choose to express that through the music. So, it’s more of a creative agenda than a political one," he explains.
“In the most literal sense, this is the only project that I’m putting out in 2024. You can engage with it on that level," he says. “It is a little controversial, the title, sure. But you know, maybe that makes people click on it. Maybe they don’t.”
He urges listeners not to read any political messaging into it.
“I don’t think that any of the songs on this project are political at all. But I do think that my existence in this space as a very vocal young Black man, who has never shied away from having difficult conversations in the past, my experience in this space is political in some ways. But I always want the music to be as accessible as possible.”
And he accomplished that, by continuing the country music genre-melding he introduced on “Cross Country.” “Motion” weaves in Afrobeats. “Icing” introduces Southern gospel.
“Project 2024" may not be political, but it crosses borders and finds human connection at every turn.
Maria Sherman, The Associated Press
