Kelsea Ballerini recently hit No. 1 with her debut single, "Love Me Like You Mean It," and she shared a very spirited acoustic performance with our sister site, PopCrush.

The 21-year-old singer-songwriter's first hit is a slickly-produced pop-country song, but she proved she doesn't need to rely on studio trickery with the performance above, which is about as stripped-down as it could possibly be. Ballerini delivers the chart-topping song with just an acoustic guitar and very simple percussion, leaving her to carry the weight with her voice and presence.

Ballerini is undoubtedly one of the most engaging young performers in music today, and she demonstrates that broad appeal with her performance, making eye contact with the camera and drawing the viewer in as personally as if she was in the same room.

"Love Me Like You Mean It" marked the first time that a female artist reached No. 1 with her debut single since 2006, and Ballerini reacted to the news with tears of joy.

“There was no reason it was supposed to work at all,” Ballerini tells Taste of Country with a sweet giggle. “There was a lot of reasons that it wasn’t, which makes it even sweeter.”

It's the culmination of a lot of work over a long period of time, not just for Ballerini, but for everyone on her team as well.

“I’ve been dreaming about [having a No. 1] since I was 12, so it’s really exciting for me,” Ballerini says. “But more than that, being a female, on an independent label — and I wasn’t on a show or anything — it’s cool to break those stereotypes and do this not just for me, but for my label too.”

Ballerini has recently released her sophomore single, "Dibs."

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