Former Roc Nation songstress Bridget Kelly has been one to watch out for these past few years, but has struggled to take a foothold in the saturated, competitive music market. She first stepped on the scene when Jay-Z enlisted her powerhouse vocals to take over for Alicia Keys on their 2009 hit “Empire State of Mind,” joining him on tour. She’s since released two EPs Every Girl and Cut To…Bridget Kelly, and had two hot singles “Special Delivery” and the Kendrick Lamar-assisted joint “Street Dreamin’”.
But since she announced that she split ways with the label earlier this year and is now an indie artist, she’s reflecting on her journey thus far in a docu-series called “Road To Independence.” In the first episode titled “The Declaration,” Kelly meditates on the experience touring with Jay Z. “Being on the road with Jay was one of the most exciting points of my life,” she said. “When those kinds of things happen prematurely before you really have a chance to know just how monumental they are, sometimes you lose yourself in it.”
She then reveals how vulnerable she was after the tour came to an end; she had to find herself as an artist. “I really had no idea what to expect from the next couple years or even the next phase,” she said. “I didn’t know what life was going to hand to me. I look back at how much of myself I gave to that process and how little in the grand scheme of things it seemed to give back to me.”
Get to know Bridget in the first episode “The Declaration” below:
