@lenny_cooper — Lenny Cooper

Lenny Cooper grew up in rural North Carolina, where one of his passions was mud bogging with his friends. Cooper also liked music, growing up with classic country but discovering rap when he was nine years old. He started writing songs at the age of 11, and by the time he was 15, he'd learned the basics of recording. At 17 years old, after being encouraged by his friends, he wrote a song, "Mud Digger," about his favorite pastime. Cooper made a home recording of it, passed it around to friends, posted it to YouTube, then went back to his life. The song began to rack up views, and attracted the notice of Colt Ford, who had been tagged in the video. Ford signed Cooper to his Average Joes label, and a debut album, Diesel Fuel, was released by the imprint in 2012, featuring new recordings of "Mud Digger" and some of his other early tunes. It was followed by Mud Dynasty in 2013, which charted at 34 on the Country Albums chart and 17 on the Rap Albums chart.