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Country music fans know Big Kenny as one half of the hell-raising, genre-bending, multi-platinum super duo Big & Rich—or as one of the ringleaders behind Nashville's MuzikMafia collective. Known for his outsize personality and "Ambassador of Love" persona, Kenny, a.k.a. Kenny Alphin, has built his career on breaking down musical and cultural walls.

"I'm just a regular guy," he recently told Nat Geo Music. "I do what I can and I'm not afraid to say what I think. I just follow my instincts and do what feels right to me. Sometimes all that it takes to change things is having the good sense to ask 'why not'?"

And Kenny hasn't been afraid to lend his time to a number of worthy causes, including the T.J. Martell Foundation, Covenant House, the Magdeline Foundation, The Coalition to Salute America's Heros and Save Darfur. Last year Kenny and his wife, Christiev, travelled to Southern Sudan with an NGO called My Sister's Keeper to help build a school and witness the region's ongoing humanitarian crisis for themselves. They also took along a camera crew to document what they saw, and the resulting footage provided the basis for a documentary film, Bearing Light: A Journey to Sudan, which debuted earlier this year at the Nashville film festival.

Kenny and Christiev recently swung by the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. to screen their film and talk about their experiences in Sudan. Nat Geo Music caught up with Kenny and found out how he balances his music and his activism.

Nat Geo Music: So how did you end up in Southern Sudan? How did you first become interested in the issue?

Big Kenny: About two or three years ago I attended a talk given by a man named Brian Slidel from an organization called TAG – which stands for Tennesseans Against Genocide. Brian is kind of like a cross between McGyver, Indiana Jones and Mother Teresa, and he had spent some time in Darfur documenting what was going on there. Collecting real evidence of how the Sudanese government is committing genocide against the people of Darfur and Southern Sudan. You could literally follow the smoking gun from South to North.

After Brian's talk he showed us some of the pictures that he had taken there and they really got to me. Christiev and I had just had a child and when I saw what was happening to kids there, it really got to me. So I really started to research this and the more I learned the more I wanted to do something. I'm not the kind of guy who likes to side on the sidelines, so when the opportunity to go and see Darfur for ourselves with My Sister's Keeper came up, we knew we couldn't pass that up.

Where did you go and what did you see?

We were about 100 miles south of the North/South demcarcation line in a Dinka village called Akon. Some of the things we saw and were told about firsthand by survivors were like visions from hell. Whole towns destroyed, just bombed into nothing, women who had been raped, whole families killed, children and babies killed… the survivor's stories were like stories from hell. That's the only way I know how to describe. It was just the worst thing I've ever seen in my life.

You were there to build a school, right?

Right. We flew in from Kenya with supplies and materials to help build a school there. It's called the Kunyuk School for girls and we brought supplies in to help complete the building. It wasn't finished when we left, but we've pledged to get it done very soon. One of the most important things to understand is that just to call for peace isn't enough. To really stabilize the situation there, people need education. We're talking about a whole society that's been disrupted and uprooted by war, but kids don't wait for wars to end to grow up. They need education now, and that's the only way that the next generation has a shot at real stability.

That actually sounds kind of hopeful...

Well, yeah... I mean in spite of all the atrocities and the horror there, people that I met did have hope. Or maybe determination... they weren't going to just roll over and die, you know? And you need to understand that these people had real dignity, too. I think one of the most amazing things that we saw was when we delivered these refugee aid kits in this huge downpour - really raining cats and dogs - and people just took them from us and started building these shelters right out there in the rain. They were really determined to survive and a little rain wasn't going to get in their way. [laughs]

So how did the film come about?

Very accidentally, to be honest. We brought a camera crew with us just to document things for ourselves. The original idea was just to show other people what can be done, to encourage people to adopt a village. It really doesn't take that much and it's amazing how far your money can go over there. We were able to pay the teacher's salaries for a whole year, and that makes an enormous difference. Money is a force multiplier in these situations. So that was the original idea, to make something just to get the word out and raise funds. But it kind of grew from there and took on a life of its own.

What do you hope to achieve with the film? What do you want people to take away from it?

It's just another way to educate people about what's happening in Sudan. We've been putting up banners for Save Darfur at our concerts for years now, and I know for a fact that there are now hundreds of thousands of people who now know what's happening in Sudan that didn't know before. But what I want people to take away from this is that they can do something, too. They don't have to be famous or rich or anything. Anybody who cares can get involved and do some good.

I didn't do this to be in the spotlight, I did this because somebody just had to do something and I decided to be that somebody. I'm not a poltician or a statesman or doctor or some kind of specialist in international development. I'm just a guy from Culpepper, VA who happens to play music for a living and who decided to get involved. It's all about direct action. It's about people helping people when governments can't. I hope that's what people get when they see Bearing Light - I hope they get inspired to take direct action themselves.