Popular singer is leaving music industry only a year after his breakthrough song

Country music artist Oliver Anthony is leaving the industry just over a year after one of his songs became a No. 1 hit.
Anthony, 32, posted a YouTube video Tuesday announcing he would be stepping back from the music business.
“I’ve decided that moving forward, I don’t need a Nashville music company,” Anthony said. “I don’t even need to exist within the space of music. So I’m looking at switching my whole business over to a traveling ministry.”
The announcement comes just over a year after Anthony’s single “Rich Men North of Richmond” claimed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. The song gained popularity on TikTok before its rapid rise on the music charts.
The singer said he wrote that song because he was battling depression and that he didn’t want to be in the spotlight.
Anthony went on to say that he plans to continue releasing music through his new ministry called “The Rural Revival Project.” A “completely DIY” show is slated for Saturday.
The new ministry is “focused on revitalizing rural farms and communities” with a goal of turning “abandoned farms into places where people can go and learn how to can food and learn how to raise animals,” according to Anthony’s website.
The artist also shared his disapproval of large entertainment companies.
“I want to create a routing schedule to exist parallel to Nashville that circumvents the monopolies of Live Nation and Ticketmaster,” Anthony said in the video. “And it goes to towns that haven’t had music in a long time and it stimulates their economies.”
No editing, no agent, no bull—-. Just some idiot and his guitar,” Anthony said. “The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place.”
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