Tyler Hubbard and his wife, Hayley, recently returned to Africa, one of their favorite destinations. But this time, Hubbard unexpectedly sang at a party in Malawi, where he was pleasantly surprised to find the locals singing and playing along while he sang Florida Georgia Line‘s record-breaking “Meant to Be” duet with Bebe Rexha.
“One thing you learn when you travel the world is how big the world really is, and how small you really are,” Hubbard recently shared with PopCulture.com and other media. “Maybe in the states we’re well known, and maybe in some people’s opinions. But when you travel the world, you realize – I mean country music’s not really worldwide either, so you just kind of put yourself in a box. But when we were over there, we did have a lot of those moments where we’re now becoming more global, and just really truly being surprised and inspired by the fact that these random villages in middle of no where in Africa happen to know ‘Meant to Be.’”
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“It is mind blowing, and a lot of that now is due to streaming and the way that music can be consumed,” he continued. “It’s not just up to our country radio stations to spread the word. So it’s really opened up a lot of doors for us, and really encouraged me not to think even bigger and outside the box and say, ‘Hey why don’t we continue to build this thing, and do shows in Africa half way across the world, and continue to build what we’re building?’ So, that’s really exciting and it’s really cool, and very humbling at the same time.”
Hubbard recently got a tattoo of an elephant on his forearm, both in honor of his love of Africa, and the animal.
“Elephants are super intellectual animals and really, honestly I just learn more and more about them every time I go to Africa,” Hubbard explained. “They’re truly inspiring, the way they – basically their values and their morals as animals and the way they love and respect and have a community and a family, and just their power. They’re just so majestic and honestly, it’s also just a reminder to preserve and take care of our environment and our world and kind of that side of things.”
“It’s all a big circle and everything works together, so when we start taking things for granted, even like the trees and the animals and stuff like that, you know it starts to affect our world,” he continued. “I’ve just learned a lot; traveling and being on safari over the last few years has just been pretty eye opening. It’s just a little reminder of a lot of things, but we also just, as simple as can be, we just love elephants, and everything that they represent.”
Florida Georgia Line will kick off their Florida Georgia Line Live From Las Vegas residency on Dec. 1, with Canaan Smith and Mason Ramsey serving as their opening acts. A list of all of their upcoming shows can be found at FloridaGeorgiaLine.com.
Photo Credit: Getty images/Rebecca Sapp
