Brittney Spencer's startling country music journey revealed

Brittney Spencer recently shared how her country music journey began as a teenager.

While having a conversation with PEOPLE magazine, the 36-year-old singer-songwriter quipped that in the 2000s, “My introduction to country was hearing The Chicks and falling in love with them, and from there, I just kind of became aware of genre — I wasn't aware of genre back then.”

“I grew up in church, and for me it was either church music or not church music, and so for me, that was kind of a musical awakening with discovering country," Spencer added.

The BLACKBIRD crooner explained, “The Chicks sent me just trying to figure out country music, and I started watching CMT and listening to local country radio in Maryland, where I'm from. … It just became all-consuming.”

Spencer, who is from Baltimore, mentioned that she started singing when she was “three or four,” saying, “I just sang, and I never had a moment where I was like, ‘I’m going to do this as my career.’”

“As a matter of fact, the only time I ever had any inclination or anytime I ever really decided something about artistry back in those days was when I was like, ‘Oh, I think I'm going to move to Nashville and pursue country music.’ I knew I loved country music, I just didn't know if I could do it,” she noted.

Spencer went on to admit that she “loved’ country music for so many years but was unsure if she would be able to “find a home in country music — I didn’t know if I’d be accepted.”

“And so that was the first time that I really made a hardcore, conscious decision about where to go in music because I had to figure out, ‘Am I going to stay in Baltimore or go to Nashville?’ and I came to Nashville,” the I Got Time hitmaker said.

Per the same outlet, Spencer then relocated to Nashville to follow her country music dream and in 2020, her cover of The Highwomen’s Crowded Table went viral.

In 2022, the Old Soul singer released an EP with a cover of The Chicks’ Cowboy Take Me Away and in 2024, she sang Burn It Down with Parker McCollum at the CMT Music Awards.

It is pertinent to mention that Brittney Spencer also became part of Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, which secured Best Country Album at the 2025 Grammys.