What if I told you that the roots of the “Bro-country” movement possibly go way back in 2001? It’s the period of country music that a lot of artists are ashamed of… but also brought plenty of acts a lot of money. It’s generally believed to have been created in the early 2010s, and peaked in 2013 with the release of Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise.” Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard are often credited with starting the trend of “Bro-country” and it’s signature sound, and 2013 is also when the term was first coined. If they weren’t the ones that birthed the style, they sure did make a lot of money off of it. They weren’t the only artists that took advantage of the explosion of more pop-leaning country music. Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Jake Owen – among others – also made sure to strike while the iron was hot. In fact, Jake Owen has even said in the past that he believes he’s the one who started Bro-country with his 2011 song “Barefoot Blue Jean Night.” In his defense, it does predate Florida Georgia Line’s earworm. And it does line up when you look at who produced Jake Owen’s 2011 album by the same name as his aforementioned, potentially Bro-country-kindling hit song. Joey Moi, a Canadian producer and audio engineer who famously worked alongside Canadian rock band Nickelback, produced Barefoot Blue Jean Night for Jake Owen. Moi also went on to produce Florida Georgia Line, Chris Lane, Morgan Wallen, and Hardy, along with some others. You could even make the argument that Trace Adkins’ 2005 hit, “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” written by Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson and Dallas Davidson, was the first real Bro-country song. But I actually believe you can draw the origins back to a song that was almost released by Blake Shelton before he punted on it and it landed in the hands of a country music great. Ladies and gentlemen… “I Wanna Talk About Me” by Toby Keith, which released in 2001, could have actually been the “patient zero” of Bro-country. If you’ve never heard the story of how the song came to be, Shelton had recorded the song that was written for him by songwriter Bobby Braddock, and was ready to release it. But focus groups were not fans of the pacing, or the spoken-word style, so the record label told Shelton that not only should he not release it as a single… he shouldn’t even put it on his album. And maybe the focus groups were thrown off by it because it didn’t sound like anything else in the realm of country music. Could it have been that those that got to listen to it early weren’t ready for the “Bro-country” sound that the fast-paced “country rap” song brought to the table? How could they have not liked it? The chorus of the tune that later became a mega-hit for Toby Keith is as catchy as they come: “I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about IWanna talk about number one, oh my, me myWhat I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I seeI like talking about you, you, you, you usuallyBut occasionally, I wanna talk about meI wanna talk about me.” The way Toby Keith sings that last “me” of the chorus hits hard every single time. The song that acted as the second single from Keith’s 2001 Pull My Chain album went on to become one of the most successful songs of the 2000s. And if you look at how it’s put together, it sounds a whole lot like some of the bigger songs of the “Bro-country” era. There just wasn’t a name for it (and a bunch of other artists jumping in on it) in the early 2000s. And while this song itself isn’t all that Bro-country in terms of a formulaic, laundry list of redneck buzzwords, it did prove that you could have a massive, massive hit with a rather silly, rap-country tune. Plus, it was in the Big Dog Daddy’s catalogue, and no one would have ever accused him of being a pop-country artist. That being said, “I Wanna Talk About Me” could have very well laid the foundation for the house of “Bro-country” that was built over a decade later. “I Wanna Talk About Me” The post The Surprising Song That May Have Accidentally Laid The Groundwork For The Bro-Country Movement first appeared on Whiskey Riff.