A conversation between six-time Grammy winner Kacey Musgraves and Academy Award-winning actress/entrepreneur Reese Witherspoon led to the globally focused country music competition series My Kind of Country, which premieres Friday (March 24) via Apple TV+, in partnership with the Witherspoon-founded media company Hello Sunshine.
“We were talking about, ‘Why is country music so closed off? Why are there not more global influences and people who have a different perspective?’” Nashville native Witherspoon told Billboard via phone. “Kacey really illuminated it for me — it’s been a closed-door business for a long time. So this idea [is] to start a country music competition series and make it very international, because the reach of Apple is global. An important piece of this is highlighting voices that have not been heard. At Hello Sunshine, we have a spotlight that we would like to shine on people who have not had the opportunity to have their work highlighted.”
Witherspoon and Musgraves serve as executive producers on the eight-part series, which airs a new episode each Friday. Also serving as executive producers are Hello Sunshine’s Sara Rea and Lauren Newstadter, and Sandbox Entertainment’s Jason Owen (Musgraves is a Sandbox client), Izzie Pick Ibarra and Done+Dusted’s Katy Mullan.
Witherspoon anticipates additional seasons of My Kind of Country, saying, “I sure hope so, because I do think country music is due for a disruption. We need to talk about why it’s been a closed-door business for so long. I think it’s the voice of the working people, whether that means you live in India, Africa, China, Japan…I think storytelling is storytelling, and we are here to promote great storytellers.”
nashvilleartistweekly.com 