Dax, a Nigerian-Canadian poet and rapper, calls from a phone number with a Wichita, Kansas, area code to speak with The Tennessean about his outsider-to-insider rise in country music's mainstream.

Dax knew almost immediately the first line he wanted to write for “To Be a Man” when he heard the beat of the track. “I walked in the room and [Lex} said, ‘Man, I got something crazy for you,'” he ...