You can tell when something’s real,” says the man known simply as Big Smo. “You can tell when it’s true. And I think what’s made us successful and gotten us this far is that we’re just real people, down-home country folk who really love to make music, and people see that.”

That success has been as hard won as it is impressive. What began as two friends—Smo and Orig the DJ—experimenting with samples, beats and lyrics in a makeshift home studio has turned into four independent CDs and hundreds of tour stops before over-the-top crowds from mud parks in Florida to night clubs in Vegas. He and his band—Orig, vocalists Alexander King and Haden Carpenter, guitarist Travis Tidwell, bassist Eric Flores and drummer Ryan Peel—have opened for Brantley Gilbert, appeared at 2012′s Bamajam on a bill with Kid Rock and Jamey Johnson, and rocked the crowd at 2013′s CMA Music Fest in Nashville. Perhaps most impressive, though, has been the phenomenal success of their breakthrough indy hit, “Kickin’ It In Tennessee.” Its video, a slice of real life shot on a shoestring at Big Smo’s 32-acre Middle Tennessee farm, has earned well over five million YouTube hits.

Now, with the release of his major-label debut, Kuntry Livin’, the man known as the Boss of the Sticks is poised to take it all up a very big notch.

It was that homegrown video, “Kickin’ It,” that turned the tide, bringing Big Smo to the attention of Warner Bros. senior vice president and head of radio promotion Chris Stacey.

“The moment I saw Big Smo on YouTube,” says Stacey, “I knew he was something special. I grew up loving rap music and loving country music, and Big Smo is the first artist that I have ever seen that seamlessly combines the two. Big Smo is for the kids with the jacked-up trucks and camo hats that love Jason Aldean and Brantley Glibert—but also bump Lil Wayne.”

Big Smo’s growing legion of fans would agree. His is the story of a country boy catching fire in a digital age, where musical cross-pollination is everywhere, where Nelly teams up with Tim McGraw and Florida Georgia Line, and Ludacris joins forces with Jason Aldean, who’s “Dirt Road Anthem” was the best-selling country song of the year. Big Smo’s rise has been fueled by high energy and relatable lyrics, a band with the ability to rock a crowd, and the studio savvy to capture that lightning in a bottle. Big Smo owns that place where country, Southern rock and hip hop come together, where the beat rocks the story and the story rocks the beat. An early review put it this way: “If Kid Rock and Run D.M.C. had a love child, he would be named Big Smo.”