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New York|The Basketball Star Who Accidentally Became a Country Music Heartthrob
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/nyregion/adrien-nunez-low-road-songs-basketball.html
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Midway through a recent concert at the Gramercy Theater in Manhattan, a country pop star based in Nashville paused between songs as a roadie lugged a basketball hoop onstage.
Adrien Nunez, the singer, tossed a ball into the crowd and invited fans to take a couple of shots as he told the story of how he learned to play ball on the playgrounds of Brooklyn. He wasn’t referring to pickup games at recess. Until just a couple of years ago, basketball, not singing, was going to be his pathway to stardom.
Instead, there he was onstage last month, with a microphone and a band, serenading the audience, many of them singing along and cheering while he twirled his athletic, 6-foot-6 frame across the stage.
The novelty hoops moment was brief, but it underscored the central mystery surrounding the improbable rise of one of Nashville’s hottest new singers. How did a New York City-born basketball star who steadfastly ignored country music for most of his life turn into a countrified heartthrob almost overnight?
“I enjoy the singing a lot more than the basketball,” Mr. Nunez, 26, said from his family home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, hours before the concert at the Gramercy. “Someone’s not trying to take your head off.”
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