Steven Battey is already a success story in the music world, writing and producing for Madonna, Justin Bieber, Flo Rida and more, before moving to Nashville to pursue writing for country music, scoring a No. 1 hit for Luke Combs with “One Number Away.” The Georgia native, who also appeared on Songland, could have kept on writing and producing, but felt the pull to do more, something with a bigger impact. The end result is Exit 216, a new duo between Steven and Cole Burkett, making history with a black and white duo, ready to make their mark in country music.

“The idea came about around last year, around October or November,” Steven told Everything Nash. “I  think for any new artist coming out, we always want to figure out how you can do something different that separates you in the music industry itself. So for me, looking at the landscape, I saw a lot of same race duos, different gender but same race duos. But I never saw anything as far as a white and black duo, you know? And I thought it would just be so powerful to see, especially with the success of Jimmie Allen and Kane Brown, they’ve been just doing their thing.”

Steven didn’t want to make Exit 216 into just another country duo, but instead wanted to take all of his influences and pour them into the new act.

“I grew up in the inner city,” he explained. “I grew up on more soul, and then got into country a little later. I thought, ‘How would that sound,  partnering up with somebody that is from the country, from let’s say Tennessee, and they grew up on all the trucks and the farm?’ I thought that would be so cool. And that’s where Cole came in. His lifestyle was his family and the outdoors — stuff that I didn’t do growing up.”

Cole was also making strides in the music business on his own, but jumped at the chance to become part of an innovative duo with Steven.

“He had the vision to start a black and white country duo,” Cole told Everything Nash. “And so, Steven went on a search for that guy, and he met a mutual friend of mine. He said, ‘Hey do you know a white guy that can sing? He said, ‘I know exactly the guy.’ He gave him my number to reach out to me. I was totally for it. I was like, ‘This could work.’ Doing it by myself, or even Steven doing it by himself, it’s like, ‘How do you break through?’ The market’s so saturated. There’s so much; so many people doing the same exact. How do you break through?'”

Steven and Cole formed Exit 216, named after the exit on Interstate 40 that leads to and from the Nashville airport, just as the world was being affected by the coronavirus pandemic and racial tensions after the senseless death of George Floyd. After initially being unsure if it was even the right time to release new music, Steven sat down with Drake White and David Mescon, quickly penning Exit 216’s current single, “Brother.”

“I love bringing unity and peace in any situation that I can,” Steven explained. “So I felt like I wanted to do something that delivered a heartfelt message about us moving forward as a country. I’m just like, ‘How can we just be better people, be better neighbors, be better friends, better strangers to each other?’ That was the idea of where I was going in my heart.”

“It was actually the perfect time,” he continued. “We had no clue that we would even be able to get the exposure we’ve been getting … We love this. It’s so nice to have something like this around right now. For us, actually now is the perfect time to be a duo.”

“Brother” is available for download here.