Despite his limited role on the basketball court, he became the team's most popular social media creator during the COVID-19 pandemic. The June 2021 Supreme Court National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston ruling prior to his senior season, which made student athlete compensation permissible, helped Nunez to attract many high-profile corporate sponsors and partners and make him one of the highest paid college athletes. After graduating, he began promoting other country music musicians through his social media platform and then he started releasing his own music. Within three months of his new music release, Billboard announced he was signed to the Warner Music Nashville and Warner Records music labels. He subsequently continued to release music and appeared on music tours as well as at music festivals. He has supported tour-headliners such as Luke Bryan and Myles Smith. He has also signed record contracts with Sony Music Publishing and William Morris Endeavor.
Nunez played for Michigan from 2018–2022, helping the 2020–21 Wolverines earn the 2020–21 Big Ten Conference men's basketball season championship and reach its third, fourth, and fifth consecutive NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament Sweet Sixteen. Meanwhile, Nunez also earned individual honors as a student athlete with three consecutive Big Ten Conference All-Academic recognitions.[4] As a freshman, he played in 20 games and only scored 3 points, but with the departure of Jordan Poole, Brazdeikis, and Charles Matthews as well as the 2019 coaching change from John Beilein to Juwan Howard, Nunez had an opportunity for a more prominent role as a sophomore.[16] Nunez appreciated coach Howard's technique, which helped Nunez upgrade his defensive deficiencies by repeating drills until he got it right.[9] When Franz Wagner was out of the 2019–20 Wolverines' lineup for four games, Nunez started in his place, scoring a career high 8 points on November 22, 2019 against Houston Baptist College from Houston.[17][4] After Wagner returned to the lineup, Nunez struggled with his shooting and his defense, resulting in a limited role.[2]
After his sophomore season, he switched from jersey number 5 to number 0 (which DeJulius had been wearing) to make way for incoming freshman Terrance Williams to wear number 5.[18] After playing just 7.6 minutes per game as a sophomore, Nunez decided to stay with Michigan rather than entering the NCAA transfer portal.[19] He committed to this decision, though his former AAU coach was being inundated with inquiries whether Nunez was considering leaving Michigan. Nunez later said that the only time during his career that he contemplated transferring to another school that might have offered a more prominent role on the court was immediately following coach Beilein's surprise departure. Instead, Nunez sought out a role on the scout team during his final two seasons.[20]
Nunez played professionally for Dominican Republic basketball team Metros de Santiago in 2023.[21] He appeared in one game for six minutes.[22]
Social media
After Juwan Howard (standing) became Michigan's coach, Nunez (second to the left of Howard) never thought of transferring. February 2020
Despite a limited role on the court, Nunez became his team's most followed player on TikTok and Instagram after posting his first TikTok video on January 13, 2020, and becoming active on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.[23] By May 2020, he had over 40,000 TikTok followers.[9] After the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in the 2021 National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston case, student athlete compensation, such as payment for name, image, and likeness (NIL), became allowable for NCAA scholarship athletes beginning on July 1, 2021.[24] Within months, he became the highest earning player on his team despite having never played more than four minutes in a game the prior season and having limited prospects for playing time behind Eli Brooks, Caleb Houstan, Kobe Bufkin, Zeb Jackson, and Terrance Williams.[10]
Nunez' musical influences are a mix of country, pop and hip-hop.[5] On August 29, 2024, Nunez released his debut single "Low Road".[27] In August 2024, his early work was noted for its Shazam traction in South Africa.[30] By this time, Nunez had moved from Los Angeles to Nashville.[27] He made his stage debut on September 25 in Nashville two days before releasing a collaborative version of "Low Road" with Avery Anna.[31] In October 2024, Nunez released "Minnesota".[27][32] On October 9, MusicRow announce he had signed with William Morris Endeavor for exclusive representation.[33] He was added to the C2C: Country to Countrymusic festival lineup in the same month.[34] By October, he announced that he would tour in support of Dasha in November 2024 and Avery Anna that December.[27][35][36]
In late November 2024, Nunez signed to Warner Music Nashville and Warner Records, following the viral success of "Low Road".[37][1] He achieved 50 million views and 5 million streams in his first days as a creative artist as well as hundreds of thousands of new TikTok followers.[5] On the other hand, Nunez claims the 5 million figure is attributed only to Spotify (a claim republished by Sports Illustrated)[36] and across all platforms the total number of streams reached 10 million.[27] Nunez's debut song on a major label, "Apology Song", was released by the time of the announcement of his signing.[1]
On January 9, Nunez alongside country artist Zach Top were predicted among the 50 selectees to the Shazam Fast Forward 2025 Artists based on the assessment and insights of trends on Shazam's data and algorithms.[30] On January 17, Amazon Music placed him on the list of "2025 Artists to Watch".[38] By the end of the month, Hits magazine listed him as a supporting act for Myles Smith and named Spring 2025 as an expected release date for his debut album.[39] On January 27, Luke Bryan announced his Summer 2025 Country Song Came On Tour supporting acts, which included Nunez on several of the summer dates.[40] In mid-February, Nunez announced the Adrien Nunez Low Road World Tour, which included his first ever U.S. headline run (with special guest Brody Clementi) as well as European dates in support of Smith and three C2C festival dates.[41][42][43] On July 23, 2025, Nunez signed a global publishing administration agreement with Sony Music Publishing Nashville.[44][45] On July 25, he released the single "WILD".[46]
Notes
↑ Also spelled Adrien Nuñez[2] and Adrien Núñez[3]
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