ERNEST, born Ernest Keith Smith, is a Nashville native, and most of his catalog has been sung by somebody else. His own bio credits him with 13 No. 1 songs as a writer. Among them are Morgan Wallen's "You Proof" and "Wasted on You," Kane Brown's "One Mississippi," Jelly Roll's "Son of a Sinner," and "I Had Some Help," the all-genre No. 1 by Post Malone and Wallen.
His own records came more slowly. "Flower Shops," a duet with Wallen, was a top-20 Hot Country Songs hit in 2022, off his 2021 debut Flower Shops (The Album). The 2024 follow-up, Nashville, Tennessee, brought in Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Lukas Nelson, HARDY and Wallen, and opened with "I Went to College / I Went to Jail," a Luke Bryan co-write that started in a golf cart. He names his influences as everything from Eminem to George Jones, and Billboard has called him a rapper-turned-modern country traditionalist.
Deep Blue, his third full-length album, came out May 1, 2026 on Big Loud, 13 songs previewed by "Lorelei" and "Boat Named After You." Before that came Cadillac Sessions, a compilation made with the writers signed to his DeVille Records and Cadillac Music Publishing imprints, with Snoop Dogg and Miranda Lambert on it.