Thomas Rhett isn’t the first musician in his family — many fans know that his dad, Rhett Akins, is a country music superstar as well. This week, Akins was celebrated at The National Music Publishers’ Association annual meeting on June 11 in New York City, where he received the 2025 NMPA Non-Performing Songwriter Icon Award, acknowledging Akins’ “over three decades of contributions to country music.”
Part of his honor included a tribute performance from his son, who sang “What’s Your Country Song,” which he co-wrote with his dad. The heartfelt performance caused Akins to tear up, growing emotional as he accepted his prestigious award.
“I have not cried in 20 years, I don’t think. I don’t know how… something like this song can happen,” he said while visibly overcome with emotion. “I mean, only God can do this. And I lost my dang phone… my whole speech is on my phone, and somebody’s sitting on it over there.” Akins continued, “Lord have mercy, thank you, God. Thomas Rhett, thank you for doing that, I never would’ve dreamed all the years we sat in the kitchen playing guitars and writing little dumb songs… it turned out to be this. Thank you, Thomas Rhett, for doing this today.”
“What’s Your Country Song” was released in 2021 as the lead single from Rhett’s album, Country Again: Side A. It became his 17th No. 1 single at country radio and was written by Thomas Rhett, Rhett Akins, Jesse Frasure, Ashley Gorley and Parker Welling. The track is one of many songs Rhett and Akins have written together, for Thomas Rhett and other artists.
Akins, who has found success as a country artist and songwriter, is a two-time BMI songwriter of the year winner and an eight-time CMA triple play award winner. He has been named the Academy of Country Music songwriter of the decade and is a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In addition to his own work and his work with Rhett, he has penned hits for Brooks & Dunn, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and more artists.
Back in 2015, Akins and Rhett chatted with BMI about music running in their family and how Akins felt about Rhett following in his footsteps. “I give him advice about 10 times a day,” Akins said. “At this point, it’s not so much advice, but more of an opinion. But back then, he really didn’t know — everything that I told him was brand new.”
As Rhett’s star rose, Akins said that his advice turned to, “Are you sure you want to do that?” He explained that his son “is a trendsetter — he doesn’t do the norm. Everything he does scares the daylights out of me. [Thomas Rhett laughs.] And he’s always right! It never turns out that I’m right.”
Rhett added that he always appreciates his dad’s advice.
“I call him — usually early in the morning or late at night, whether I’ve seen something on Twitter or I’ve just played a show or something bad happened — and I need to tell him, ‘I think everything is going to end, what do I do?’ And Dad is the best at talking me off the edge,” he said. “Also, we collaborate a ton, we write all the time. We always have songs we write together on my records, and we’ve written songs for other people together, so it’s a lot of fun to be able to do that with your dad.”
