Jelly Roll pays heartfelt tribute to late Toby Keith at 2024 Stagecoach

Jelly Roll has recently paid heartfelt tribute to the late Toby Keith at 2024 Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California.

On April 26, Jelly performed a rendition of Toby's Should've Been a Cowboy alongside T-Pain to honour the late country musician, who passed away in February at 62.

Prior to this event, Jelly and T-Pain released their version of Should've Been a Cowboy on Amazon Music.

Speaking with Variety, Jelly revealed that Toby's songs like Should’ve Been a Cowboy, The Next Thing on My List and I Love This Bar inspired him to pursue country music following years as a rapper.

"He was an outlier. He was unapologetically Oklahoma. There are a lot of things he did that encouraged me and empowered me," he told the outlet.

Jelly noted, "He was very individualistic and carved his own path and he did it his own way, from pillar to post. He never knew it, but he was a mentor to me, just watching him from afar."

"Toby’s son saw me at the CMTs and took me to the side and said, 'Hey man, I want to let you know I’ve seen a video of you covering this song, and I think it’s one of the best versions of it ever. And I think you honor my father.' And it just meant so much to me," recalled the Save Me crooner.

Explaining why he selected T-Pain at Stagecoach, Jelly mentioned, "T-Pain was telling me the story about how the only time he’s ever done something big in the country space, at the CMT Awards, he was presenting with Toby [in 2009]."

"And he was just talking about just how awesome Toby was just as a human and how Toby made him feel comfortable and was cracking him up before they went out," remarked the Wild Ones singer.

Meanwhile, Jelly disclosed he and T-Pain decided to donate their proceeds from the cover to the Toby Keith Foundation.

"I just figured that we’re doing it for Toby and the cool thing was, I called T-Pain with that and he didn’t hesitate," added Jelly.