Real ’90s acts never die, they just become country stars. We’ve seen it with Hootie Darius Rucker and it looks like the Backstreet Boys are ready to cross over to the twangier side of the dial.
That’s why you’ll see the mega-selling boy band in the list of performers at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Alongside country stars like Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Maren Morris and Jason Aldean, the “Everybody” singers will join genre-blurring superstars Florida Georgia Line to perform their single “God, Your Mama & Me.” Familiarize yourself with it up top.
It’s not the first time that the uber-bro country duo have reached outside of country music for collaborators. The band’s first hit single “Cruise” was remixed to include a verse from Nelly. And much like it did with the “Country Grammar” rapper, their single with the Backstreet Boys has also lead to sharing space on a summer tour. The boy band will open for FGL as the travel around the country on their Smooth Tour.
As for the televised performance, it’s merely the latest instance of country awards shows injecting a little bit of pop stardom into the preceedings. Beyonce famously — and somewhat controversially — performed her undoubtedly country song “Daddy Lessons” at the Country Music Association awards last year. And another product of the boy band era performed alongside traditionalist star Chris Stapleton the year before that.
But it goes both ways. Alicia Keys and Maren Morris performed together on pop’s biggest night, singing Morris’ track “Once” much in the same way that they did during a performance on CMT’s Crossroads.
The 52nd annual ACM Awards go down on April 2 on CBS.
