Tori Kelly on Her Brush With Prince, Fame After a Decade of Trying and How She Proved Manager Scooter Braun Wrong
Two nights after performing in Minneapolis, the 10th stop of an 18-city North American headlining tour, Tori Kelly's Journey to Her Breakout Billboard Music Awards Moment: Watch It Here
In May, much likeAriana Grande's breakout moment a year prior, Kelly's acoustic performance of "Nobody Love" at the Billboard Music Awards sparked early Grammy buzz. "One of the reasons you'll see her doing more stripped-down sets on TV is that there's nothing we need to conceal," explains Capitol Music Group chairman/CEO Steve Barnett of her appeal. "We're in an era where real artistry often competes with prepackaged 'acts,' and there's no studio trickery involved with Tori."
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Though Kelly's name has floated around the industry for years, her exposure has yet to yield a high level of commercial success — which manager Scooter Braun (Grande,Justin Bieber,Carly Rae Jepsen) aims to change. "I remember telling her, 'You're the most talented person I know, but you're boring. People think you're boring. They think you're vanilla,' " says Braun. "But Tori is resilient. The next day she came to my house and said, 'I wrote a song about what you said, and it's called 'Unbreakable Smile.' "
For Kelly, who says she has "had to learn the dark sides of the industry — who to trust and who not to trust," that track fittingly became the title of her debut full-length album, Unbreakable Smile . The record, which is packed with catchy, pop-laced tracks like "Should've Been Us" (which rises to No. 32 on the July 4 Mainstream Top 40 chart), illustrates the influence of mega-producer Max Martin, who has worked with superstarsBritney Spears,Katy Perry,Taylor SwiftandMiley Cyrus. But despite the pop bona fides, Kelly, who often begins the writing process by recording a melody or lyric on her iPhone, says she won't drift far from her roots. "Soul is at the base of the album; soul is what makes me me. The pop came after, and it's like the sprinkles on top."–
This story originally appeared in the July 4 issue of Billboard .
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