Noah Kahan, born in 1997 and raised on a tree farm in Strafford, Vermont, began writing songs at age eight and signed with Republic Records in 2017 after gaining early exposure on SoundCloud and YouTube. His early single "Hurt Somebody" achieved gold status, paving the way for his debut album Busyhead (2019), but his mainstream breakthrough came with the folk-centric album Stick Season (2022), which went viral on TikTok before its release and earned him a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 2023. The album's deluxe edition, Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever), and collaborations with stars like Post Malone solidified his rise, blending personal Vermont-rooted storytelling with indie-folk influences from artists like Paul Simon and Cat Stevens. In 2026, his fourth album The Great Divide debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with record-breaking streaming and vinyl sales, marking his first stadium tour as a headliner. Drawing deeply from his Jewish heritage and rural upbringing, Kahan has become a defining voice in modern folk-pop.