“He said, ‘Your songs are the soundtrack to our tour,'” recalls the Alabama artist, who is now following in Post’s footsteps by diving headlong into country
Alabama hip-hop artist Clever got his big break when the late rapper Juice WRLD shared one of his songs on his Instagram page, instantly gaining him thousands of followers overnight. That helped also put him on the radar of Post Malone, who discovered Clever’s song “Stick by My Side” with NLE Choppa, and surprise FaceTimed Clever to tell him how much he liked it.
“I freaked out for a second,” Clever, who is now launching a country music career, tells Rolling Stone during an appearance on the Nashville Now podcast. “He said, ‘We need to hang out. Your songs are the soundtrack to our tour.’”
Clever eventually met up with Post on the road and the two bonded. “We started playing beer pong and doing the Post Malone tour thing,” he recalls. “He said, ‘What’s your situation? I want to get you over here with us,’ and I ended up signing with Post.”
Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic derailed Clever’s plans with Post’s label — Posty Co. — but he remains undeterred as he follows in the footsteps of other rappers turned country singers, including Jelly Roll and Post himself.
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“Jelly Roll kind of started a wave. You see Beyoncé coming through doing her thing. I think it’s great for the genre. But…I’m trying to do my thing to stand out,” Clever told Nashville Now.
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by senior music editor Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Charley Crockett, Gavin Adcock, Margo Price, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, and Ashley Monroe.
