Although eight singers recently received Grammy nominations for best new artist, few of them likely feel they’re actually new to the music industry.
Take pop singer Sabrina Carpenter or country artist Shaboozey, for example.
Carpenter — who had her initial breakthrough starring in “Girl Meets World” on the Disney Channel — had five albums under her belt before her chart-topping “Short n’ Sweet” album, which this year gave the singer her first No. 1 hit.Report ad
Shaboozey, meanwhile, released his first single in 2014 and his debut album in 2018 before his smash hit “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” launched him to fame this year.
But there’s at least one singer in the best new artist category who is really new to music — so new, in fact, that it was only around five years ago that he even discovered he could sing.
Shortly after that discovery, in 2021, an 18-year-old Benson Boone decided to try his luck on “American Idol.” But the teenager — who “Idol” judge Katy Perry declared a potential winner — ended up forgoing the competition and also dropped out of BYU-Idaho to pursue music on his own terms.
Now, three years later, Boone has a smash hit and is up for a Grammy.
Here’s a look at the singer’s improbable rise to fame.
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Benson Boone discovers his voice
While in high school, Boone’s friend asked him to play piano in their school’s battle of the bands. The teenager had grown up playing a little and loved listening to a wide range of artists — including Elvis, Aretha Franklin, Billy Joel and Adele — but he didn’t really understand the scope of his musical abilities until he wound up filling in as the singer at the last minute after the original singer quit.Report ad
“We didn’t have a singer and my friend said I should sing and I was like, ‘Dude, I never sang before,’” Boone previously told the Everett Herald.
He pushed through his hesitation and decided to take the stage to sing — much to his parents’ surprise.
“My husband and I hadn’t heard him sing ever really,” Boone’s mother told the Everett Herald. “He told us he was going to do it and we were like, ‘Oh, OK, alright, this should be interesting.’
“When we went, our jaws dropped.”
In an interview with MTV, Boone recalled how his mother was in the front row during his performance, bawling her eyes out. Even if he hadn’t ended up winning the battle of the bands — which he did — it still would’ve been one of his favorite moments because of the life-altering self-discovery.
Up until that point, Boone, who was a competitive diver and loves the outdoors, figured his life would go in that direction.
“I went out on stage and I started singing, and my voice kind of just came out of me. It’s just like I unlocked something I didn’t know I had,” he told MTV. “And I stopped, like, halfway through the first verse and just looked around, and I was so shocked that I had just sang. … It was, like, the best feeling of my life.”
Benson Boone auditions for ‘American Idol’
After that battle of the bands performance, Boone began posting music clips on TikTok and gaining traction — enough to catch the eyes of “American Idol” producers.
Unlike many who audition for the show, Boone hadn’t grown up watching “Idol” and didn’t have much of a connection to it, but it was an experience he was interested in trying. And the opportunity came around the time he took a break from college after a semester at BYU-Idaho in an effort to focus more on music, per the Everett Herald.
The teenager seemed a bit in disbelief when he entered the “American Idol” audition room where music superstars Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan were sitting at a table.
Boone was wide-eyed as he stood before the judges, just moments away from performing for a spot in the reality competition that helped to launch the careers of superstars like Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and David Archuleta. He told the judges that he had only started singing about a year earlier.
“I didn’t know I could sing before a year ago,” he said. “It’s become a really big passion of mine, really quickly.”
