The name Kelsea Ballerini is all the buzz lately, considering the Black River Entertainment artist’s rise to the top of the Billboard and MediaBase charts last week. While the selfless singer-songwriter made it a point to thank everybody for their parts in her debut single “Love Me Like You Mean It” climbing to Number 1, there are a handful of artists her fans can thank for bringing Kelsea to country.
The Knoxville, Tennessee native told ABC Radio that the first songs she wrote didn’t fit a particular mold, but she knew they weren’t contenders for the Top 40 format she enjoyed.
What I was writing came out country just ’cause that’s who I am, but I did not listen to country music.
It was when Kelsea first heard Keith Urban‘s “Stupid Boy” that she opened herself to the country genre, exploring other artists and studying the products to figure out if that was where she would fit.
I was like, “What is this?” So, I went and got his record, Dixie Chicks and Sugarland and Taylor Swift. Those four records were my introduction to country music. I remember listening to those [albums] and thinking, like, “I think it is kind of what I’m writing.” Like, “I think this might be where it fits.” And that was it. Then I was, like, all about country.
And country is all about Kelsea in return.
