For BET’s 45th anniversary, we’re honoring our legacy of discovering and uplifting talent with “The Future of Black Culture” series. From Kendrick Lamar’s first televised performance to spotlighting legends like Beyoncé in her early career, BET has always been a platform for rising stars. This year-long series will kick off with five profiles, followed by a new feature each month, showcasing the next generation of trailblazers across entertainment, music, sports, art, tech, and activism.

Why We Co-Sign: The Mississpian fulfills the Black country music wave after Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter brought the genre center stage last year.
Breakout Moment: Elsie’s latest single, “Forgiveless,” became a viral sensation, igniting buzz across social media and cementing her as a rising force in Black country music.
What’s Next: The singer-songwriter plans to release an EP before the end of 2025 to give new listeners “a taste of the new Elsie.”

It took a few setbacks for country singer-songwriter ELSIE, to find her way back into the genre that called to her as a teen. The Mississipian took part in a momentous competition that solidified her path to become a country artist, but when things went left, Elsie was reminded that her Southern origins paved the way for her destiny. Besides, the singer didn’t have a small-town upbringing filled with playing piano in church, swinging on front porches, and drinking sweet tea while chowing down on crawfish, cornbread and collard greens just for her voice to go unheard, not when she lives and breathes the country perspective.

“I grew up in the church and I honestly feel like R&B, country and gospel are all cousins,” Elsie tells BET.com. “So it's not too crazy for me to kind of venture off into country music. By the time I graduated from college around 21, I started writing country.”

She continues, “I tell people my songs come from God, so He started to give me these songs and I could hear the tune that they're supposed to be in. I'm like, That's country!”

But Elsie, who regularly listened to the vocalists Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer and Mickey Guyton, struggled to find Black female representation on CMT. In wondering if she personally “fit the description” of an accepted country artist, Elsie tried her luck and entered the Country Showdown talent showcase in 2016 at the recommendation of her father. After winning on a local scale from her Columbia, Mississippi, hometown, Elsie made it to the regional level before beating thousands nationally in 2018.

“I was a little unsure of if I could make it or if I even belonged,” she said. “But by winning, I was like, I can do this. It made me feel good being the first in Mississippi to win and it felt incredible being the first African-American to win. So I was on top of the world but it kind of came crashing down.” 

It was after her Country Showdown win and years of determination that Elsie was met with a unexpected outcome — she wouldn’t receive her prize money because the competition was in debt.

“$50,000, that's not chump change. I could have done studio time or put it towards marketing or paid off my student loans,” Elsie explains. “I never saw a dime, but just the fact that I was the first Mississippian to win in, the first Black person to win, that gave me all the fuel I needed to keep going.”

Instead of seeking validation for non-marginalized country figures, Elsie wants more visibility, particularly for independent country artists like her in Black media spaces. Black country music has been steadily gaining traction — 2024’s BET Awards expanded its reach into the country with performances from Shaboozey and Tanner Adell —  but Elsie says that there’s room for improvement.

“We have to make sure we're celebrating ourselves, because if you look at other award shows, people are putting in all of this work and not even getting the proper recognition that they deserve,” she advises.

The acknowledgment would be especially welcomed by Elsie after years of having her skills dismissed, although her resilience shined on her 2017 eponymous EP. “I've had people tell me ‘You're not really a vocalist’ or ‘You’re just a songwriter,’ ‘You should give your song to other people,’” she recalls. “I didn't have the confidence in myself but winning that competition and beating out people across the nation gave me the confidence boost that I needed to pursue it full-time.”

But motherhood took precedence while Elsie went from Mississippi to sojourns in Korea, Canada, Mexico and Australia to support her husband, who’s a professional baseball player. The couple share two children, a son and daughter, the latter who was born at 28 weeks while Elsie had preeclampsia.  

“I had actually stepped back from trying to pursue my career, just because I was really struggling with postpartum depression,” she says. “After I had my babies, my transition into motherhood was a bumpy one. So all of the music that I wrote during that time, I felt like it was probably gonna help a lot of women that went through the same thing that I did.”

Among one of the songs that came to Elsie was “Forgiveless,” a strong country-soul tune where the singer refuses to go easy on someone's faults. While Elsie wrote the song six years ago, after witnessing someone close to her be endlessly forgiving, it’s since become a testament to her own power.

“It was almost like God gave me that song and it wasn't for me at the time, but I went through so much in that five year period that when I released it, I was like, I feel it so much more. It just hits different now.”

She continues, “When I worked on that song, it was somebody else that inspired that. I just kept seeing them going through it and I'm like, How are you doing this? How are you continuing to go back to this person or forgive this person? So I was basically like, This is how you should feel.”

Elsie hesitated to share “Forgiveless” with her pastor parents, fearing that the message of unforgiveness wouldn’t land, but the song got their stamp of approval and it’s since been embraced by new fans who can relate.

“Sometimes I feel like, growing up in the church, we're always told ‘You gotta forgive immediately.’ But I was like, That's kind of not realistic, especially if you've been betrayed or incredibly hurt,” she says. “I think it's okay if we just sit with our feelings and process those emotions first before we forgive that person. Sometimes you just ain't ready to forgive and that's okay–maybe not to God, but to me.”

Now with plans for an EP reintroduction that blends country pop, hip-hop and gospel, Elsie shows that the South never left her spirit; it’s heartened her.