Lathan Warlick shares his life story throughout his new EP, 'My Way,' out today via RECORDS ... [+]
Lathan Warlick shares his life story throughout his new EP, My Way, out today via RECORDS Nashville and Columbia Records. The newcomer collaborates with several of country music’s heavyweights including Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard, who executive produced the eight-track project, Matt Stell, Russell Dickerson, Dustin Lynch and Lauren Alaina.
My Way is a versatile collection that encompasses elements of gospel, hip-hop and country music. As Warlick explains, he doesn’t want his music to be stuck in one genre.
“I want to be a light into this dark world and how can I do that with just sitting in one space?” he tells me over the phone.
The singer’s mission to provide God, love and unity, comes from a near-death experience when he came face to face with a 45-caliber pistol in 2011. Then a dancer, after winning a local talent show Warlick and some friends went to a nearby club in Jackson, TN to celebrate. The moment he entered the club he could sense a bad vibe. A fight broke out inside and he likens the moment to a scene from an old Western movie. Warlick and his friends left the club and he soon found himself running from two of the men fighting his crew.
“I've been jumped before so [I thought], ‘I’ll just fight myself out of this incident,’” he recalls. “As I’m taking my shirt off to get myself out, a guy pulls this 45-caliber pistol to the side. That’s when life changed for me. As he pointed at me his friend was saying, ‘Shoot him.’ … I remember looking up and I asked God, I said, ‘God if you’re real like everybody says you are then prove that you’re real and get me out of this situation.’ And just like that God intervened and got me out of that situation. After that my life and my mindset changed.”
Warlick gave up dancing and started going to church and connecting with his faith. He began making music, including spoken word and uplifting hip-hop songs, and would perform at church events and youth camps. He shared his verses on TikTok during instrumental breaks of songs by Lewis Capaldi, Justin Bieber and Adele, soon going viral and amassing over 1 million followers. Wide Open Music artist manager and RECORDS Nashville president Ash Bowers, also from Jackson, TN, discovered Warlick in 2020 and offered to manage him.
“All these people began reaching out to him and becoming fans,” Bowers says. “Tyler Hubbard, athletes like Emmitt Smith, Candice Cameron Bure from Full House. It was such an organic thing. It's really cool and clearly appealing when he's got a million followers on TikTok practically overnight from rapping about Jesus over a Louis Capaldi instrumental. That's what’s intriguing to people. I think people want more of that and less of what they already have on their playlist.”
Warlick signed with RECORDS Nashville in August 2020 and moved to Nashville in December. His first Nashville collaboration was with Matt Stell, also managed by Bowers and on RECORDS, who is featured on Warlick’s debut single “Over Yonder.” RaeLynn heard the song and messaged Warlick on Instagram and the pair collaborated on the uplifting female anthem “Roots” before Hubbard and Alaina came into the mix and his My Way EP developed.
“I want to bring something different to the table and these guys created that ingredient for me,” Warlick says of his collaborators. “When you have the vision, you know where you’re going.”
On “Over Yonder” Warlick sings of “not being so divided by color” while “In Your Hands” and “Gotta Be God” serve as testimonials on how he wouldn’t be here today without God in his life. Warlick says it is important to push the vision of God, love and unity within his music and to his collaborators.
“The unity path, I had to definitely dig into and work with people that didn't look like me, that weren’t African-American people because that was the whole part of my unity process of what God was doing,” he says. “If we stay united and come together we could be so powerful and so amazing, and I just want to be a part of that. The ship is slowly turning, and it might not even happen during my time on Earth, but I know that I want to be somebody that contributes to that.”
On My Way Warlick pushes genre barriers with a diverse list of collaborators, proving that doing things his way is a recipe for success.
