Dwayne Johnson Reveals Plans for a Serious Pivot to Country and Soul Music
Dwayne Johnson is stepping back up to the mic — and this time, he's telling Rolling Stone the music isn't a cameo.
The 54-year-old WWE legend turned Hollywood heavyweight just released "Your Dad," a country-tinged single co-written with former American Idol winner Iam Tongi for the Moana: Voices Across The Ocean tie-in album, and he's now openly weighing a deeper dive into the genre that's been humming in his bones for decades.
The Sound of a Backseat Memory
In a sit-down with the magazine, Johnson traced his love of country and old-school soul back to life on the road with his pro-wrestler father — city to city, night after night, the dashboard speakers carrying the weight of everything that mattered. "Every night a different city. And so that's all he would listen to," he said, naming Sam Cooke and Merle Haggard as the quiet architects of his ear. He's floated the idea of recording in that lane next, "some country flavour" stitched into classic soul — the music of his childhood rolling forward into something he can finally call his own.
The new song, he made clear, isn't built for a streaming dashboard. "Just a song to my daughters," Johnson told Rolling Stone, untethered from chart pressure or box-office math. It marks his most candid acknowledgment yet of music's gravitational pull — the thing that kept tugging at him even when Hollywood had him on a tight leash. His first recorded foray came back in 2000 with Wyclef Jean on "It Doesn't Matter," and he showed off his vocal flair to a global audience with "You're Welcome" from 2016's Moana. Those always felt like detours, though. "Music has always been such an anchor for me," he said. "We're exploring that now."
What to Watch
Johnson hasn't committed to a full-length project yet — he's still in the exploration phase, swinging his legs out of bed and listening for the thing that pulls hardest. If the early signal holds, country radio has a heavyweight caller at the gate, and festival bookers would do well to keep their rolodexes warm. Separately, Mshale is reporting that Keith Urban has opened up about finding his creative "flow state" and navigating his split from Nicole Kidman, though fuller details of that conversation are still surfacing.