Jelly Roll

When you look at the landscape of country music, you'll mostly find good ole boys in cowboy hats or ball caps singing about trucks, beer, girls, heartbreak and, more than likely, a vague, off-the-grid backroad in some small, picturesque town.

What you wouldn't find, until the last few years, is Jelly Roll: a tatted-up rapper from middle Tennessee with a past that includes dozens of trips behind bars, drug dealing and more obstacles than we could ever think up.

Despite all of that, though, weaved throughout all of Jelly Roll's music is an unbreakable thread of hope, vulnerability and raw honesty that you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere in the genre.

Born Jason DeFord, he was raised in Antioch, a neighborhood just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Coming up in a middle-lower class community as the youngest of four kids, he was witness to his mother's enduring mental health and addiction issues from a young age. Exposed to drug dealing and other hardships, he spent the better part of 12 years in and out of juvenile detention and jail systems, earning multiple counts of possession and attempted robbery, among other things.

Upon being released from jail, Jelly Roll admitted that he wasn't qualified to do much other than talking and singing, so he set his sights on music. He originally began his career in the hip-hop space as part of the group SNO and eventually waded into the rock scene, but now, he sits in the upper echelons of today's country music icons.

Since the release of his 2021 project, Ballads of the Broken, Jelly Roll has been on the fast track to stardom. The genre-defying album included both his first No. 1 at rock radio, 'Dead Man Walking,' as well as his debut country single, 'Son of a Sinner,' which hit the peak at country radio in January of 2023.

Quickly checking off items on a new artist's country music check list, including making his Grand Ole Opry debut in November 2021, Jelly Roll successfully sold out Nashville's Bridgestone Arena in December 2022 and simply hasn't stopped since.

After stealing the show at the 2023 CMT Music Awards in May as a first-time nominee with three wins for the Male Video of the Year, Male Breakthrough Video of the Year and Digital-First Performance of the Year, Jelly Roll brought everything to a head this June with the release of his debut country album, Whitsitt Chapel, which features breakout single 'Need A Favor.'

Exploring themes of addiction, pain, struggle and redemption, Jelly Roll’s music combines southern-tinged rap beats with his soulful vocals, and it has proven to strike a chord with listeners far and wide.

As Jelly Roll continues to make his meteoric impact on country music, he will embark on his 44-city Backroad Baptism Tour this summer.