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Kelsea Ballerini <\/a>will be the first to tell you she\u2019s feeling quite refreshed \u2014 and in a new era of her life and career. The singer made a rare detour from her New York City album-making to perform for the first time in over six months at SoFi\u2019s first-ever Amplify Your Ambitions contest at CMA Fest, and mentor the three finalists in search of a $200,000 grand prize from the financial institution.<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/p>\n Before taking the stage for a four-song set at the Hutton Hotel\u2019s Analog, Ballerini stretched her The Voice <\/a>coach chops to provide live feedback to the three finalists at the event: country-pop singer Shantaia Poulin, country-soul duo The Kentucky Gentlemen, and the grand prize winner, singer-songwriter Karen Hardy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s funny, I learned a lot when I was on The Voice, like how to give advice. And my biggest advice is you\u2019re always going to have people giving you their opinions. And some people you should listen to more than others,\u201d Ballerini told Rolling Stone ahead of the event. \u201cBut even the people that are credible, if it doesn\u2019t feel right \u2014 if you try on the advice and it doesn\u2019t feel right \u2014 your word and your gut should be number one at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n For Ballerini, the CMA Fest<\/a> appearance marked her first return to the stage all year, after spending 2025 touring and releasing both the deluxe edition of her 2024 album, Patterns, and her EP, Mount Pleasant.\u00a0 Released last November, that project included a Rolling Stone mention in the song \u201cI Sit In Parks,\u201d in which she reflects on the possibilities of her life were she to have gone down a different path, singing: \u201cIs it my fault for chasing things\/ A body clock doesn\u2019t wait for\/ I did the damn tour\/ It\u2019s what I wanted, what I got\/ I spun around and then I stopped\/ And wondered if I missed the mark?\u201d \/ But Rolling Stone says I\u2019m on the right road.\u201d<\/p>\n Naturally, we had to ask her about the shoutout.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like there are certain pillars in the music industry as far as credibility that you kind of always seek to get seen by,\u201d Ballerini explained of the line. \u201cAnd Rolling Stone to me has always been one of those. It\u2019s like Rolling Stone, and Grammys \u2014 like, certain associations that you\u2019re like, \u2018I hope one day I feel supported and seen by them, because that\u2019s the caliber\u00a0 of music that I want to make.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She added, \u201cSo \u2018I Sit in Parks\u2019 is a song all about going, \u2018I\u2019ve spent all of my adult life so far really sprinting towards one thing, and can I sprint towards several things at the same time?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Has she reached a point where she thinks she can do that now?<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019m learning that sometimes less is more. I think for a long time, I didn\u2019t really believe in taking any time for myself, and I\u2019ve found that when I do, I\u2019m way more present for the art that I\u2019m making, and way more eager to get back into it when it\u2019s time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Speaking of, Ballerini says she\u2019s in an \u201cin-between season\u201d with music as she creates the songs for her next album, which she\u2019s crafting completely in New York City \u2014 stepping away from the Nashville scene where she made every project before this one.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just in this phase of my career where I wanted to just, even location-wise, try on a different energy,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd what does my kind of country music sound like, influenced by a city that\u2019s not Nashville? New York is just such an alive city. Everything\u2019s blooming, and people are outside all the time. You can even hear the sirens and the people in the background of all the demos.\u201d<\/p>\n At last year\u2019s CMA Fest, the singer told Rolling Stone<\/a> she was ready to take \u201csit in the moment\u201d and take a breather. \u201cI took my proper break. And now I\u2019m in the process of making the next thing,\u201d Ballerini says. \u201dIt\u2019s not out yet, so I\u2019m like I just want to stay in that bubble and keep it close to the chest and mine as long as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if she\u2019s stepping away from Nashville to build her project, she has her eyes set on the future of the genre. She notes she\u2019s been spinning Carter Faith\u2019s album Cherry Valley and loves Stella Lefty and Avery Anna, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI was so inspired at the ACM Awards this year<\/a>,\u201d she says. \u201cThe girls do be killing it in country.\u201d<\/p>\n Ballerini\u2019s lone CMA Fest appearance came as part of her multi-year partnership with SoFi, which welcomed auditions from over 500 aspiring musicians competing for a grand prize of $200,000.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir biggest priority is whether you\u2019re in college, you\u2019re buying your car, you\u2019re buying your first home, whatever it is, to help really invest back into yourself and um, and your dreams,\u201d Ballerini says of SoFi. \u201cBefore you get that first break, that first deal, it is an investment of time and resources. And it gets really expensive to be competitive. It\u2019s a huge investment they can put back into their lives and careers. It\u2019s life-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n The event, hosted by SoFi Chief Marketing Officer Lauren Stafford Webb,, drew a star-studded crowd, including Gossip Girl and The Boys star Chace Crawford, country artists Stella Lefty and Dasha, and Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson East.<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[101367,76345,9,24,56,63,65,64,15654],"class_list":["post-260849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-cma-fest","tag-kelsea-ballerini","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-rolling-stone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}