Shaylen Returns to Her Country Roots
Photo by Be Good Creators.
Rising country music artist Shaylen knows how to make an impression. Whether she’s jokingly telling Brad Paisley that she “pooped her pants” during her Grand Ole Opry debut, powering through a songwriting session during the messy onset of a kidney infection, or relocating from Los Angeles to Nashville with just $75 to her name, Shaylen’s resilient spirit is the driving force behind every project she undertakes. Behind her humor and charisma, however, lies a whirlwind journey of experimentation and self-realization that has ultimately brought her back to her country roots. Now, with a deep-seated sense of purpose and belonging, Shaylen is embracing the music that’s always been at her core.
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and raised in Dallas, Texas, Shaylen grew up on country music. The thirty-one-year-old singer-songwriter first learned how to sing in church when she was just six-years-old. After a solo performance of “Bringing in the Sheeps,” Shaylen fell in love with performing. Although she’s always felt connected to the country world, her music career ultimately took several unexpected detours.
As a teenager, Shaylen joined the pop group Savvy, which signed with Cash Money Records in 2011 as the label’s first pop group. At the time, Cash Money was one the most successful hip-hop labels, having signed wildly-popular upstarts Drake and Nicki Minaj through its Young Money Entertainment imprint. The deal led seventeen-year-old Shaylen to move to Los Angeles full-time without a dime to her name.
Although Savvy was Shaylen’s first major foray into the music industry, the group was eventually shelved. “God’s timing is hilarious because it just wasn’t supposed to happen then,” Shaylen reflects on the early days of her music career. “After I moved out there, I worked like five different jobs. I definitely faked my age and was a bartender so I could make more money,” she confesses.
Once Savvy officially disbanded and Shaylen was on her own, she quickly realized that she needed to learn how to write her own songs in order to advance her career. Against the backdrop of the booming Soundcloud era, she messaged every Soundcloud DJ whose profile she came across. “A lot of them blocked me after so many messages, but some would send me tracks, and I figured out how to write over them,” she shares.
Her networking efforts eventually channeled her into the EDM world and led to her singing vocals on tracks like Chantel Jeffries’s “Come Back To Me,” but she quickly realized that the EDM scene was not for her. She then penned a ballad, which led to her signing her first publishing deal as a solo artist and later, in 2018, signing with Universal Republic Records.
Two years later, Shaylen was on the cusp of having her first radio single – and then the pandemic struck. “That’s the epitome of my whole entire career in LA,” she reflects. “It was just like it’s always right there.” Unsurprisingly, the single was put on hold as the world erupted into mass chaos. “I thought it was the worst thing to happen to me, but it happened to be the best thing,” she shares. “During Covid, I realized that I needed to take a step back and not cram myself down social media anymore because there came a point where I was trying to promote my songs with finger puppets – that was a dark time – so I took a step back and I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is what I fell in love with in the first place,’ which was the first time I had ever thought about that. I just had a group of people around me that were like, ‘You’re done. Nobody wants to see you as an artist, you’re too southern, you’re too this, let’s shave your head,’ and all these different things, and I was like, ‘This isn’t what I fell in love with,’ so I decided to let go because I was clearly trying to do this out of ego,” she admits. “LA is a tough place. It’ll chew you up and spit you out, and it’s hard to make friends. There’s more Starbucks and smoothie places than there are churches on the corners.”
While in LA, Shaylen admittedly neglected her relationship with God. “I kinda veered away from it for a couple years of my life, and then I hit a wall. I literally was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna pray. I’m gonna talk out loud and be like, ‘Hey it’s me, and I really suck at this and I’m sorry.’’ It was funny because that little voice, I’m telling you right now, as much as I sound crazy, I literally heard somebody just say in my ear, ‘You gotta go do something really scary, but I got you.’ And I just trusted that and ran with it,” she reflects.
“Everything in your journey happens exactly the way it’s supposed to happen. When you let go and stop trying to force things to go your way, what’s on the other side is better than what you could’ve ever made happen,” she sagely asserts.
Much to her relief, Shaylen then received an offer to fly out to Nashville to write. Although her management at the time was adamant that she was only going to be a songwriter and not an artist, her first songwriting session in Music City resulted in “What If I Don’t” – now Shaylen’s most-streamed song.
“I left that session and I was like, ‘Well, I’m usually okay with giving my songs away, but I don’t know. This one feels weird,’” she shares. “I just had this inner voice that was like, ‘Hey, give this one last fight. Go turn your life upside down after ten years, but just trust me on the other side, it’s going to be better than you could think.’ And I did. I packed up my boxes and moved to Nashville with $75 to my name, and I didn’t know anybody.”
Being the fun-loving free spirit that she is, Shaylen had no trouble forming new connections and adapting to her new city. She even co-founded Two Hats Music Group, which she is now managed by. “All of a sudden, six months later, I was like, ‘I think more than my mom is listening,’ and then a year and a half later, I’m stepping into the Opry circle, and I don’t know how it happened,” she says, laughing. “But I will say it’s God – it’s not me. That’s all Him. I’m just here to provide a song that hopefully helps somebody.”
Shaylen during her Grand Ole Opry Debut on October 5th. Photo by Chris Hollo.
Since then, Shaylen has dedicated herself to crafting her first album as a solo artist, which is slated to release early next year. “Funny enough, in my seventeen years of doing this, this will be my first actual album I’ve ever put out, which is weird,” she says. “Last year, just because I wanted to get in with everybody and anybody and I loved how creative and brilliant everybody was, I wrote like 103 songs. Then, I met Mr. Scott [Borchetta], and I played some songs off of my phone, and he was like, ‘We’re gonna do this,’ and I was like ‘What?! Me?’ So I was like, ‘Okay, well I have songs for you,’ and he was like, ‘Okay, send them.’ I tried to narrow it down, and I got to like fifty-something and he was like, ‘Hold on. Did you just send me a link of fifty-something songs?’ and I was like, ‘Well there are like fifty-something more,’ and he goes, ‘OMG.’ It’s been so funny to work through all of the songs and alongside such an amazing team. It feels like home. They see the vision.”
In the lead-up to her debut album, Shaylen has been satisfying fans with various singles, including “Do It Right The First Time,” a song based on her grandparents’ 75-plus-year-long relationship, “Been There Before,” “Let Me Let You,” and, most recently, “To Tell You The Truth.”
“I found out how to love myself again in all of these songs,” she shares. “It’s been so healing. Vulnerability is such a beautiful thing, and I think it’s really freeing.”
Now officially back to her country roots, Shaylen is doing better than ever before. Armed with a with a deep-seated sense of purpose and belonging, she approaches her craft with newfound clarity and confidence, which has allowed her true personality to shine through. For Shaylen, this isn’t just a return, it’s a homecoming – a chance to create from a place of authenticity and share music that feels as natural as it is meaningful. With each new song, she’s letting the world know that she’s exactly where she’s meant to be.
