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Kelsea Ballerini will be the first to tell you she’s feeling quite refreshed — 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’s 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.
Before taking the stage for a four-song set at the Hutton Hotel’s Analog, Ballerini stretched her The Voice 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.
“It’s funny, I learned a lot when I was on The Voice, like how to give advice. And my biggest advice is you’re always going to have people giving you their opinions. And some people you should listen to more than others,” Ballerini told Rolling Stone ahead of the event. “But even the people that are credible, if it doesn’t feel right — if you try on the advice and it doesn’t feel right — your word and your gut should be number one at the end of the day.”
For Ballerini, the CMA Fest 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. Released last November, that project included a Rolling Stone mention in the song “I Sit In Parks,” in which she reflects on the possibilities of her life were she to have gone down a different path, singing: “Is it my fault for chasing things/ A body clock doesn’t wait for/ I did the damn tour/ It’s what I wanted, what I got/ I spun around and then I stopped/ And wondered if I missed the mark?” / But Rolling Stone says I’m on the right road.”
Naturally, we had to ask her about the shoutout.
“I feel like there are certain pillars in the music industry as far as credibility that you kind of always seek to get seen by,” Ballerini explained of the line. “And Rolling Stone to me has always been one of those. It’s like Rolling Stone, and Grammys — like, certain associations that you’re like, ‘I hope one day I feel supported and seen by them, because that’s the caliber of music that I want to make.’”
She added, “So ‘I Sit in Parks’ is a song all about going, ‘I’ve spent all of my adult life so far really sprinting towards one thing, and can I sprint towards several things at the same time?’”
Has she reached a point where she thinks she can do that now?
“I think I’m learning that sometimes less is more. I think for a long time, I didn’t really believe in taking any time for myself, and I’ve found that when I do, I’m way more present for the art that I’m making, and way more eager to get back into it when it’s time,” she said.
Speaking of, Ballerini says she’s in an “in-between season” with music as she creates the songs for her next album, which she’s crafting completely in New York City — stepping away from the Nashville scene where she made every project before this one.
“I’m just in this phase of my career where I wanted to just, even location-wise, try on a different energy,” she says. “And what does my kind of country music sound like, influenced by a city that’s not Nashville? New York is just such an alive city. Everything’s blooming, and people are outside all the time. You can even hear the sirens and the people in the background of all the demos.”
At last year’s CMA Fest, the singer told Rolling Stone she was ready to take “sit in the moment” and take a breather. “I took my proper break. And now I’m in the process of making the next thing,” Ballerini says. ”It’s not out yet, so I’m like I just want to stay in that bubble and keep it close to the chest and mine as long as I can.”
Even if she’s stepping away from Nashville to build her project, she has her eyes set on the future of the genre. She notes she’s been spinning Carter Faith’s album Cherry Valley and loves Stella Lefty and Avery Anna, too.
“I was so inspired at the ACM Awards this year,” she says. “The girls do be killing it in country.”
Ballerini’s 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.
“Their biggest priority is whether you’re in college, you’re buying your car, you’re buying your first home, whatever it is, to help really invest back into yourself and um, and your dreams,” Ballerini says of SoFi. “Before 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’s a huge investment they can put back into their lives and careers. It’s life-changing.”
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.