Fancy Hagood

Fancy Hagood serves as the professional alias for Jake Hagood, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter previously known as Who Is Fancy. An enigmatic online marketing push first introduced Who Is Fancy through the 2015 Top 30 single “Goodbye,” which surfaced digitally and reached radio outlets that January. Under the Fancy Hagood name, he issued his first full-length project, Southern Curiosity, in 2021. In the ensuing period he issued a run of singles and the 2024 EP Smothered, Covered & Fried, all shaped by an emotionally candid strain of country-pop.

Born in Bentonville, Arkansas, Hagood spent several years writing songs in Nashville prior to “Goodbye.” The midtempo breakup track, issued by Universal and Big Machine and driven by a yearning male vocal melody steeped in R&B, climbed to number 29 on Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40 chart. Online reports soon identified Hagood as the performer, noting that Fancy Hagood shared songwriting credit with Jesse Frasure and Steph Jones. His identity became official in April 2015 when he performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The next year he joined Meghan Trainor and Ariana Grande on “Boys Like You.” After failing to build on the momentum of “Goodbye,” he left both the label and his longtime manager Scooter Braun.

Adopting the Fancy Hagood name and foregrounding his ties to the LGBTQ+ community, he began issuing candid, largely autobiographical singles such as “The Forest” and “Southern Curiosity.” The independently released debut album Southern Curiosity arrived in 2021, followed later that year by the Devon Gilfillian duet “Let Me Be.”

In 2022 he put out the singles “Bored” and “Blue Dream Baby,” plus a reimagined version of “Where Did All the Cowboys Go” recorded with Abby Anderson. After the 2023 release of “Southern Sound,” he delivered the five-track EP Smothered, Covered & Fried in 2024, which included guest spots from the Kentucky Gentlemen, TJ Osborne, and Jaime Wyatt. Shortly afterward he issued the single “Through.”