Kane Brown can (and will) sing country however he pleases at Rupp Arena

The scene was the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, an already curious ritual as it celebrates a promotional pop music format the network vacated with any regularity decades ago.

The event was broadcast from the Prudential Center in Newark, but for one of the its most compelling performances, the action went remote to a neon-outlined, shore-side stage in nearby Fort Lee, New Jersey, where Kane Brown became the first male country artist to play live for the VMAs.

Country, a genre that has been afforded considerable stylistic latitude over the last 20 years, had its boundaries stretched to new limits once Brown dug into what was then his newest single, “Grand.” Outside of a quick but obligatory drinking reference in the chorus (“I love a little whiskey in my hand/make it disappear then reappear again”), country music as many knew it had flown the proverbial coop in the song. In its place were vocals snapping at a machine gun pace, a trip hop-like groove fit for the poshest of dance clubs and an outdoor audience adorned with glow-in-the-dark wristbands that had Brown singing to a very literal update of what The Beatles once called The Sea of Green.

Those at the head of the MTV class seemed to have no problem if Brown’s performance resembled next to nothing of what anyone viewed as conventional country music. Count famed Louisville rapper and VMA co-host Jack Harlow among them,

“People told him he wasn’t country enough,” Harlow said when introducing Brown. “Now he can make whatever type of music he damn well pleases.”

But here’s the thing. Break down the lyrics to “Grand,” the third single from Brown’s 2022 album “Different Man,” and what you have is very much a slice-of-life story, a traditionally designed saga reflecting a life that celebrates family and personal victory over internal adversity. It’s just that the language reciting it lands a few light years away from the nearest honky tonk, as witnessed by Brown’s audience bond in the lyrics promise to “always keep it trilly with the fans.”

Okay, then. Here’s another thing. Rewind the calendar just a few months prior to that and check out the video for “Like I Love Country Music,” the second single from “Different Man.” It opens with Brown sitting comfortably behind the chariot of choice for all bro-country brethren, a shiny pick-up truck. The vocals, now reflecting an easygoing Southern wink, have the singer name-checking Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee” (a hit that heralded a reawakening for traditional country music over 30 years earlier) and giving a tip of the cowboy hat Brown atypically dons as the video progresses to honor the guiding promotional force for any sound currently pumping out of Nashville – meaning, radio.

“You turn me on as much as I turn on my radio.” Wow. Talk about paying the country music piper.

What all of this translates into isn’t really about anyone’s definition of what country has become today. The stylistic identity crisis surrounding Nashville product has been posing dilemmas for years. It instead outlines one of the most unlikely success stories country music has produced in some time – a saga the industry itself seemed largely resistant to initially.

Growing up as a bi-racial youth in rural Georgia and Tennessee, Kane and his mother faced a level of homelessness that at one point had them sleeping in their car. Singing in a middle school choir led to a friendship with future country star Lauren Alaina. Like Alaina, he auditioned for “American Idol” but was not accepted. Brown was invited onto “The X Factor USA,” but eventually declined the offer after the show’s producers would only let him perform as a member of a boy band.

The setback actually turned the singer to marketing himself through a series of homemade videos where he covered hits by George Strait, Lee Brice, Alan Jackson and others. A Kickstarter-funded EP eventually broke him through to the country charts in 2015.

But it wasn’t corporate Nashville that took the biggest first notice of Kane and music already broadminded as much for its lyrical reach as its stylistic scope. A 2018 Kane tune, “American Bad Dream,” boldly addressed gun violence in the wake of the mass shooting earlier that year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. that left 17 people dead.

Brown took home honors at the 2018 multi-genre American Music Awards for Favorite Male Artist (Country), Favorite Album (Country) and Favorite Song (Country). In contrast, the Country Music Association ignored Brown completely that year, refusing him even a nomination.

The shunning was all the more remarkable considering Brown had scored his first No. 1 country hit in 2017 – a duet single titled “What Ifs” that re-teamed the singer with longtime pal Alaina.

While the country industry as a whole took awhile to catch up with Kane’s brave crossover music, other genres – and, more importantly, the audiences that supported them – were quick to champion him. Kane pondered those demographics in a 2018 interview with Billboard magazine.

“A die-hard country fan, they’re not going to a Drake concert,” Kane told Billboard writer Marissa Moss, to which Moss added, “But those Drake fans? They’re coming to him.”

Lexington has been along for the ride, following’s Kane’s rise in star status over the past six years through performances at Manchester Music Hall, the Opera House and a Red, White and Boom bill at Rupp Arena headlined by Brad Paisley.

Kane returns to Rupp this weekend for his first headlining show at the venue as part of his “Drunk or Dreaming Tour.” Dustin Lynch (of “Cowboys and Angels” and “Small Town Boy” notoriety) along with LoCash (the Nashville duo of Chris Lucas and Preston Brust) will open.

Some of what you will hear at Rupp will sound just fine coming from that shiny truck Brown was encamped in for the “Like I Love Country Music” video. Some of it will seem more at home in a tropical disco. Either way, Kane is content with the sounds he designs, enough so to welcome any fans – country or otherwise – to join his journey.

“I used to always be nervous about what people were going to think, and I was kind of scared,” Kane told Hank Shteamer of “The New York Times” prior to the release of “Different Man” last fall.

“I didn’t want people to think that I was leaving country music because that’s my heart,” Brown said. “But now, it’s just to the point where it’s like, I’m a dad now (with) two kids. I care what they think. So I’m just not that scared kid anymore.”

Kane Brown with Dustin Lynch and LoCash

When: March 24 at 7 p.m.

Where: March 24 at Rupp Arena, 430 W. Vine

Tickets: $38.50 to $149.50 at ticketmaster.com.