MIAMI – Growing up in Miami within the ’80s and ’90s, Leo Brooks had a secret love that he all the time was once afraid to proportion with his buddies: He was once a country music fan.
While striking out with his buddies in highschool, Brooks listened to rap, hip hop, selection rock and different standard music, however at house with his circle of relatives, he listened to country. The Miami native’s love of country was once inherited from his father and grandfather, who did not come from Nashville, however from Roatán, a small island off the coast of Honduras.
“The biggest thing there is Reggae music and classic country music,” Brooks mentioned. “So I started learning how to play music to George Jones and Hank Williams and Willie Nelson, all the country classics. It wasn’t so popular back then in Miami, so that’s something I kept to myself.”
Now Brooks is returning to Miami as part of the country duo Neon Union. They are slated to carry out on the Country Bay Music Festival scheduled for Nov. 11-12 on the ancient Miami Marine Stadium, simply southeast of downtown on Virginia Key in Biscayne Bay.
The headliners scheduled for the development are Thomas Rhett, Sam Hunt, Chris Young, Lee Brice and Lainey Wilson. Other performers come with Randy Houser, Chris Lane, LOCASH, Elle King, Restless Road, Blanco Brown, Josh Ross, Hailey Whitters, David J. and Kat & Alex.
“This is a big thing for me,” Brooks mentioned. “I never would have thought that I would be performing at a country festival as an artist in Miami, being from Miami. I’m going to feel like I’m floating when I perform that day for sure.”
Brooks mentioned he by no means in point of fact thought of being the rest as opposed to a musician, but it surely took a whilst to get started his country occupation. The 40-year-old were given a gig as Lauryn Hill’s bass participant in a while after graduating from highschool and stayed with the rapper and singer for about a decade. He then joined hip hop-artist Pitbull, additionally a Miami native, for any other decade.
During Brooks’ time with Pitbull, they collaborated with Tim McGraw and different country artists. Brooks began sharing a few of his country songs with Pitbull, hoping to go them alongside to established country acts, however Pitbull inspired Brooks to carry out the songs himself.
“I’m the guy in the background,” Brooks mentioned. “But he kept telling me every day nonstop, ‘You gotta do it.’”
Brooks said Pitbull hooked him up with some promoters, landing Brooks a spot at a country music festival. Brooks eventually met his Neon Union partner, North Carolina native Andrew Millsaps, through mutual friends and recorded a five-song demo the next day.
“While we were recording, our hairs were standing up,” Brooks mentioned. “We’re like, ‘This is a God thing. This is meant to be.’ And that’s simply the sensation I nonetheless have.”
The duo launched their first unmarried, “Bout Damn Time,” in November 2022.
Growing up with country music allowed Brooks to lock into the texture of it, however he can’t forget about the Latin affect of his Miami upbringing, he mentioned.
“That gives it a little flavor in our sound for sure,” Brooks mentioned.
Miami already is regarded as a hub for Latin, hip hop and digital music, however Country Bay organizer Nelson Albareda, the CEO of Loud and Live, mentioned South Florida has no scarcity of country fanatics.
More than a 3rd of all country music fanatics within the U.S. known as folks of Latin descent and Miami’s recognition as a cultural melting pot, in addition to an leisure capital, inspired promoters to deliver a large country music match to South Florida, Albareda mentioned.
“We believe that this could become a destination festival, where people come for Miami and country music,” Albareda mentioned. “And we’re seeing that in our tickets sales. We are selling an equal amount of tickets in South Florida as we are outside of South Florida.”
Albareda mentioned his corporate started checking out the Country Bay idea in 2017, regardless that plans have been behind schedule through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Back heading in the right direction, Loud and Live is already operating at the lineup of performers for subsequent yr and Albareda hopes the festival can turn out to be a everlasting, annual match.
Country Bay is scheduled to be held on the Miami Marine Stadium, profiting from the view throughout Biscayne Bay towards Miami’s skyline. City officers and ancient preservationists have labored to repair and renovate the construction, and Albareda mentioned his corporate desires to reinforce the ones efforts.
“We have a long-term commitment to Country Bay as a festival, and we have a long-term commitment to Miami,” Albareda mentioned.
Besides web hosting probably the most greatest country occasions in Miami’s music historical past, the Country Bay Music Festival will come with a country-themed bar, video games, meals, line dancing, a mechanical bull and a massive Ferris wheel. The festival additionally has been promoting anchorage get right of entry to passes enabling fanatics to attend the development through boat or yacht. Organizers be expecting as many as 20,000 folks.
Virginia Key, the website online of Miami Marine Stadium, is a small barrier island in Biscayne Bay connected to the mainland through a unmarried causeway. The restricted get right of entry to created transportation issues for the Ultra Music Festival when the digital music match quickly moved from Bayfront Park in downtown Miami to the Miami Marine Stadium in 2019.