Shy Carter on the Importance of His and Frank Ray's 'Jesus at the Taco Truck': 'We Wanted to Show Love' (Exclusive)

Shy Carter couldn’t help but laugh when he first heard fellow songwriter Ben Burgess utter the words "Jesus at the Taco Truck."

"He had that title," Carter, 39, tells PEOPLE. "I remember thinking, 'I don't know man…can we say that?'"

But soon, the hip-hop star turned songwriter turned artist began thinking more extensively about those five words, and exactly what they could end up meaning to so many. So, he decided to at least consider them to serve as the title of his next single.

"I knew it was going to go deep," explains Carter of the eye-opening song which he ended up co-writing with Burgess and songwriter Nathan Chapman. "But it's an important thing to talk about. Ben talked to me and Nathan about it, and we know people that have that story too and that are struggling. We began to think that the song could just show some love to people who are going through something that we can't even fathom."

And some of those people were Carter's very own friends. 

"I played it for a couple of my friends — one from El Salvador and one from Mexico — and they thought it was a great song," Carter remembers. "They had tears in their eyes."

From there, Carter decided to reach out to country artist Frank Ray and get his thoughts on what could be considered a somewhat controversial song. "I asked Frank to sing it with me and he said he would, but he wanted to change a couple of things, because he's Mexican and he fully understands that better than we do," says Carter, who released his debut country single in 2020 courtesy of "Good Love." "The changes were subtle, but they were big."

Hitting on such heavy topics such as immigration and segregation and the sheer cruelty often shown to those who are different than us, "Jesus at the Taco Truck" also broaches the idea that God could be living amongst us all. 

And it was this idea that seemed to hit home for Carter.

"In the Bible, it talks about how you might be entertaining an angel or something like that," he says. "I've definitely experienced some spiritual things out there that man, you can't really explain sometimes."

When it came to filming the video for one of 2023’s most unexpected viral phenomenons, Carter says that both him and Ray agreed that they wanted to keep things as simple as possible, to be sure that the true message of "Jesus at the Taco Truck" shined through. 

"We just wanted to tell the story and we wanted people to be touched by it," Carter tells PEOPLE. "I don’t have any expectation of what people do with it, but personally, I wanted to present it raw. The story is raw, you know? We just wanted to show love and understand that whoever is in front of you, you don't know their story. That's the same for all of us. You never know what somebody's going through and struggling with, so you just must go to them with kindness and love."

Indeed, the love shown to the song and the accompanying music video is something that Carter says he has never seen before, despite a career in which he has enjoyed writing credits on songs such as Kane Brown's "Heaven," Charlie Puth's "One Call Away" and Sugarland's "Stuck Like Glue."

"This song is really affecting a lot of people who are just wanting to have a better life for their family," says Carter. "The situation's got to be so rough for them to go through the things they must go through to try to make something happen. I have cried multiple times just seeing the comments on TikTok and all that, so it just is a blessing to me. I'm so grateful to be a part of something like this."

Even Stevie Wonder loves the song.

"I played it for him," shares Carter, who is good friends with Wonder’s son Mumtaz. "We were just sitting in the kitchen at his studio, and we were just talking, and it was late, and I played it for him. He said, 'I almost cried when you played me that song.'" He pauses. "Purity in the music is real and something special. So the fact that it touched him is just amazing."

Certainly, "Jesus at the Taco Truck" just might be this song that becomes part of Carter's legacy.

"I would love to be remembered for a song like this,” says Carter, who recently released his version of "This Christmas" with late soul legend Donny Hathaway. "I've just been grateful that it's happening and that it's happening now."