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.

Diving down the register through rumbling, thundering, tumbling bass lines, 'Phenomenon' is a dark and brooding slice of uncompromising electronica from the trio of producers. Using tightly wound ...