Muscle Shoals is the reference point Kashus Culpepper keeps coming back to. He grew up in Alexander City, in east-central Alabama, singing in a church children's choir, and the studios up in the Shoals, where Aretha Franklin, the Allman Brothers and the Rolling Stones all cut records, were what he had in mind once he got into music. When his debut album, Act I, came out on Big Loud in January 2026, part of it had been recorded at Ivy Manor Studio in Muscle Shoals, with Brian Elmquist producing and Marcus King on slide guitar for "Southern Man." Rolling Stone heard old-school country, soul, R&B and Southern rock in it. A summer EP, Act I: Summer Nights, followed in June.
He came at it sideways. Culpepper worked as a firefighter and EMT and served in the Navy, where he started fronting cover bands, and he played rooms in places like Biloxi, Mississippi, before a cover of Tyler Childers' "Messed Up Kid" went viral. He didn't start writing songs until 2023. Act I's 17 originals were co-written with people like Brent Cobb, Natalie Hemby, Foy Vance and Rhett Akins, Sierra Ferrell sings on it too, and "Alabama Beauty Queen" is about a schoolmate who, in the song at least, leaves their hometown for New Orleans.