Age doesn’t best define a person’s level of maturity or emotional depth. Life experience does. Katelynne Cox might simply seem like a fresh-faced teen with an amazing voice, but behind that exuberant smile lays a seasoned soul with a wealth of experience that adds integrity, character and emotional weight to her budding artistry.
“I love country music. I love rock music. I love Broadway tunes. I’ve even listened to screamo music and I love it all,” says the young pop/rocker whose first full-length album, One Girl, releases in May on Red Hammer Records. “I love to sing and lyrics are what is most important to me. I don’t want to sing about anything that I haven’t experienced. I want each song on the album to be a little piece of Katelynne and for my audience to get to know me better and to be able to relate to me.”
That desire to be accepted and create music that fosters a sense of community was actually born out of some challenging times in the young singer’s life. Her teenage parents divorced when she wasn’t yet a year old and she spent time with both growing up. “I have great parents and I love them very much,” she says. “They’ve always supported me and even when we might not have had the money to do everything that other kids got to do such as take vacations every year or go buy this and that, I learned to appreciate everything I got so much more. All you really need is family.”
Another trial emerged in her life when she became the victim of bullying in school. As a result, she had to change schools nine times. “It was a struggle. It was hard to just brush it off,” the 16-year-old admits. “In 8th grade, I was attending a private school and I switched schools because my parents wanted to transfer me into the public school. I got called words that I didn’t even know, that I didn’t even understand. I had to look them up or ask my parents what they meant. I had threats to kill me. I had people stalking my house and people got arrested for some of the stuff that they were doing to me.”
There’s a common misperception that only socially awkward or “nerdy kids” become the target of bullying when in reality, beautiful, over-achieving students are also frequent victims. For petite, pretty Katelynne it was a living nightmare. As a sophomore, she was tackled in the hallway and sprayed with foul-smelling men’s cologne. On another occasion, her cheerleading uniform was stolen to keep her from cheering in a big game.
She was scared and miserable. For a while she tried to escape the abuse by trying harder to fit in. She dyed her hair black and tried to blend in by changing her appearance and developing a tougher attitude. She admits she put her faith on the back burner, but God drew her closer again and taught her important lessons. She learned her true identity was in Christ and His plan wasn’t for her to conform to the world, but to use her gifts for His glory. “I started going to church again,” Katelynne says. “I sang at a church and realized that the Lord’s plan for me wasn’t to act like everyone else. It was to pursue my dreams. I know He has a plan for me and I plan to keep following that and trying to see where He wants me to go.”
“YOU AND ME”
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