Brown leads this year’s nominations with four nods in three categories. He’s nominated for video of the year (“One Mississippi”), male video of the year (“One Mississippi”) and CMT performance of the year (two nods, for his CMT artists of the year performance, as well as his collaboration with Nelly, Blanco Brown and Breland as part of CMT Crossroads: Nelly & Friends). He is the reigning male video of the year winner for his clip for “Worship You.”
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“I have a good buddy, [‘One Mississippi’ director] Alex Alvga, and he’s so good at what he does,” Brown recently told Billboard of the making of his video for “One Mississippi.” “I remember it was early morning and performance scenes with fire in it. I got to go into the fairgrounds before it opened to the public. It was the middle of the pandemic, so I appreciated people who were working through it.”
First-time nominee Johnson is up for video of the year, male video of the year and CMT digital-first performance of the year. This week, Johnson also notched his first No. 1 hit on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart, with “‘Til You Can’t.”
Ballerini, who has three nominations, is co-hosting this year’s CMT Music Awards alongside Anthony Mackie; she co-hosted the event last year with Brown. Ballerini is nominated for video of the year, collaborative video of the year (both for “Half of My Hometown” with Kenny Chesney) and CMT performance of the year (“I Quit Drinking” with LANY, from the 2021 CMT Music Awards).
Combs has two nominations this year (video of the year, male video of the year), as does Lambert (video of the year, female video of the year).