I started going on YouTube and studying everybody who was super popular, from Taylor Swift to Beyonce to Michael Jackson to Chris Brown, just everybody... That's what helped me find my voice and helped me find how I write songs, just doing covers.

I definitely see the genre opening up a lot more. I don't know if black people don't want to get into country music or what, but I feel like we're breaking down barriers.

I've learned that I don't take 'no' as an answer. I'm very competitive; I'm very prideful.

My team and my fans are going to keep growing and getting better and making a name for ourselves.

We lived in eight or nine different houses and six or seven different apartments growing up.

My nana is a real life mentor, and so is Brad Paisley and a few other idols in country music.

My fans love everything. You can find my fans at a Drake show; you'll find my fans at Post Malone all the way to Pink. They just love music in general.

The world is so crazy.

I have the best and most loyal fans in the world, and they are used to connecting with me since the very beginning.

I know that sounds weird, but I always compete with myself. If I do something, I always look at a chart and say I can do better the next week.

I love everybody.

I feel like everybody that saw my videos was like, 'Oh this dude's about to rap.' They just played my videos, and I feel like I shocked a lot of people.

It kind of feels cool to be the outsider.

I just feel like I have a chance to be a role model now.

I am not interested in changing who I am to fit someone else's idea of what a category should be or look like.

Growing up, I never had a steady home.

The tattoo that means the most to me would probably be my Chinese symbol on my neck. It means love - I got it on Mother's Day.

In country radio, everybody has such a connection and a bond. So you've got to meet them.

It feels awesome to be a Guinness World Records title holder and to be the first artist to achieve this with Billboard. I remember being in elementary and middle school and looking at the books for all of the records, and I can't believe my name gets to be in there now.

I wanted to call it 'Experiment' because it's all kinds of different sounds. We have a bunch of instruments on there that are basically going extinct, like the fiddle, the steel guitar, the slide.

I try to stay away from all negativity.

When I first got into country, I was trying to do the traditional country thing, and I still have a heart for traditional country. But the songs I was writing just weren't falling into that category.

You can't hold a grudge against anybody; you gotta let it go.

My mom was so good at hiding the bad in life that I thought all of life was good.