NEW YORK – Kelsea Ballerini's debut single "Love Me Like You Mean It" went number one, making her one of only eleven solo female country artists to top the charts with a debut tune.
It's also been almost three years since a woman was number one on the Billboard country airplay chart. The singer has been compared to Taylor Swift by the media, not just for their shared long, blonde hair, but also for their ability to break records.
"As soon as it hit top ten I was like, 'What if? What if this could possibly hit number one?'" she told FOX411 Country. "I knew the last female to do that as a debut was Carrie Underwood nine-years-ago…and then it happened which is crazy…"
She added, "I'm so proud to be a female to have a number 1 right now."
Ballerini said she owes her current success to her the female artists in country music that came before her.
"I wouldn't be an artist if I didn’t have Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Taylor Swift, to look up to," she explained.
Considering Ballerini's single can be heard playing on repeat on country radio, does she think female artists aren't getting enough attention?
"For me, I think [female artists have] always been such a staple in country music and I don’t even know why it’s a question. But also, there’s two females in the top five right now [and] I’m lucky enough to be one of them so I just think country radio has embraced us."
Ballerini moved to Nashville to pursue music at the age of fifteen and was signed to a record label four years later. She said it was important to her that her first album truly capture the artist she has become since she started writing songs at age twelve.
"I really wanted this album to capture my life from twelve, when I first started writing songs to twenty-one, now, and I wanted it to be the kind of album, where people listened to it from top to bottom and didn’t know me, didn’t know my single, anything, they would know me by the end of it and they’d be like, 'Me and Kelsea, we’re buds.'"
For more of Ashley Dvorkin's interview with Ballerini, watch the video above.
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