If you live on a 14-acre ranch in Fort Worth—complete with 17 horses, several roosters, pigs, and dogs— and you’re a country music artist, there’s bound to be some authenticity coming from whatever songs you turn out.
Chris Jerome Blanton Jr., otherwise known as C’ing (pronounced King) Jerome, has turned his country roots and his love of hip hop and R&B into a burgeoning career. His slate of singles that include “Barn Don’t Close,” “Beautiful Day,” and “Funky Town Lullaby,” have snagged about 3 million streams cumulatively. This summer, he signed a recording contract with Nashville’s Average Joes Entertainment, and released a new single, the aptly titled “Average Joe.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Jerome was busy juggling a phone interview, keeping his animals healthy in the heat, and entertaining his daughter.
“We raise horses, but it’s always been hand-in-hand with country music,” he said. “I just took to it—someone asked me to try music. I’ve been singing all my life, but it wasn’t something I wanted to do at first—but I tried it and once I got in there, I just got addicted to it.”
Jerome’s evolving catalog immediately announces that he’s a bit of a genre buster. In any given song, you can pick out George Strait-tinged country mingled with rap and hip-hop, punctuated with the occasional R&B falsetto.
“I ain’t going to lie to you—the high-pitched noises and stuff like that, that just all kind of came about, as I was creating,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that it came from all the music I listened to over the years, just rammed into one. I didn’t pay attention to it until somebody brought it to light and said, ‘You’re like four different genres.’ I call it country.”
As a Black country singer and songwriter, he’s also aware of the dichotomy that Black country singers have always been a presence, but they don’t always get attention. As a Black country artist who raps, we asked him whether Lil Nas X’s breakout with “Old Town Road,” and the ensuing debate over what constitutes country, helped people wrap their heads around the concept.
“That song was pretty country, it was cool,” Jerome said. “But it wasn’t authentic. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t his lifestyle, it was just a song he made. Me? I think it’s super personal because it’s what I do every day of my life. My songs are country.”
He was reluctant at first to talk about whether country music is diverse. He feels like the talent is diverse, which isn’t matched by the industry.
“Black country does exist, it’s always existed. It just hasn’t gotten the attention,” he said.
Black country artists are even having a bit of a moment in Nashville, he said. “I just feel like every now and then somebody will get noticed—you have Charley Pride, and Darius Rucker, and the like, but it has never been a lot. There’s a lot of people in Black country, but the industry doesn’t pick up everything.”
Some of that, he said, is that country music can tend to feel a bit homologous, and Black country frequently follows suit.
“A lot of Black country music sounds like White country music,” he said. “And in Nashville, there are thousands of bands that sing country music, but they’re not getting separated out because they’re the same.”
Jerome said his “hood country” music resonates because it’s different. He also feels that country music has enough sub-genres—from California country to Texas country to outlaw country and more—that there is a place for his brand of country, too.
“If I got to Nashville, it’s like I’m walking along a hallway by myself in between the pop, R&B, urban world, the country world, and hte mainstream,” he said. “It’s always, ‘All right, where do we put you?’ That’s the conversation I have with everybody.”
It’s a conversation Jerome has in North Texas, too, because of the wealth of talent in the area. Music lovers in Dallas and Fort Worth, he said, probably don’t even know how deep the bench is when it comes to musical talent in the area.
“I feel like Dallas is a mini-Atlanta; it’s got everything,” he said. “If execs sat down and just analyzed DFW, they could probably find what they want.”
So deep is the talent pool, he said, that when he first started making music, he instantly realized how hard it would be to break in with all the competition. “I was like, ‘Man, it’s hot out here—DFW is getting hot,” he said. “If you’re an artist here you’re gonna get a little status here, but you’re going to go get status in other states and other countries before you even get status here.
“But once you get status here, you’re good forever.”
With a record deal in his back pocket, Jerome said he plans to keep writing and working his ranch.
“I want to break through every door in the industry that is involved in this style of country, and I want to make it cool for the hood guys to come over here and listen to this country music,” he said. “With my music, I want to bring the hood, country, everything, so everyone can feel comfortable.”
Hear C’ing Jerome’s singles here.
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