Kenny Sharp is one of Nashville's most quietly essential voices. A singer, songwriter, and producer from DC by way of Muscle Shoals roots, Kenny has built a genre-bending sound he calls "Brown Liquor Music," rooted in the American South and drawing from Blues, Soul, Funk, and Rock. He's signed to Prescription Songs as a songwriter, founder of Nashville Family Affair, one of the city's most beloved R&B events, and has opened for Citizen Cope, Wale, the Chuck Brown Band, and Vince Gill. Last weekend he took the stage at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Beyond being a dear friend, creative co-conspirator and role model to me, we wrote our first official collaboration,"Limbo" together. I asked him four questions.
Bonnaroo. How did that feel from the inside?
Surreal. I'm always nervous about my voice before shows, so I was trying to stay quiet and take everything in while managing six or seven people in the band at the same time. But having Corey and Mia bring us down, they're like family, and then once we got there it just opened up. All these people, all different kinds of music. You can imagine it but you've never actually been.
We played a smaller stage, which felt right for where we are. I told myself: do you, have fun, keep moving. The word I keep coming back to is progress. That's what Bonnaroo felt like. Not a destination, a marker.
You've been building in Nashville for years outside the country mainstream. What have you learned?
Coming from DC, where there's basically no industry infrastructure for artists who look like us, Nashville actually felt like a revelation. A music city with venues, video people, lighting folks, costume designers. There's a vehicle here that didn't exist where I came from.
But the mainstream of this city does feel like it wasn't built for us. There are rooms where you walk in and something in the air tells you you're not supposed to be there. And still, I believe this: if you pick up a guitar and sing well and tell a good story, people are going to want more. This city listens for something true.
What I've learned is that you build your own table. You find your people. And then you make the work good enough that the rooms you weren't supposed to be in start coming to you.
We wrote Limbo together. What does real collaboration mean to you?
Music is communal at its core. When you build a real circle, every show feels like a family reunion. Everyone knows the work, the personal struggles, the cost we each paid to make these things happen. That matters more than visibility. You can have a big following and feel completely alone in this.
Collaboration interrupts that loneliness. It pushes your artistry in ways solo practice can't. And honestly, the business side of collaboration helps just as much. The hustle, the marketing, the booking, none of that has anything to do with hitting notes. When you have people working through that with you, it's just as valuable as the musical chemistry. Maybe more.
What are you building toward next?
The album is recorded. Now the focus is building a real show, not a setlist, a show. There's a difference between playing your songs like a recital and creating an actual experience. I want something with upstairs and downstairs, a journey, something that feels like a movie. Choreography, intentional placement, lighting cues that feel like punctuation, costumes that reinforce the story.
A song can be great on a record and forgettable on a stage if you're not thinking about the full picture. I'm thinking about the full picture.
Follow Kenny Sharp: @musiccitykenny