Grace Carter Talks Meaning Behind ‘Why Her Not Me’ & How Song Writing Made Her A Happier Person

This week we’re shining the MTV PUSH: Ones To Watch spotlight on Brighton's 21-year-old singer/songwriter Grace Carter.

Nominated for the BBC Music Sound of 2019, YouTube’s Ones To Watch for 2019, and having toured with the likes of last year's MTV winner Mabel, Rag‘N’Bone Man and Dua Lipa, it’s clear this girl is making her voice heard all over.

Watch our exclusive MTV PUSH: Ones To Watch 2019 interview spotlight with Grace Carter here:

So, obvs, we had to make this superstar in the making one of our MTV PUSH: Ones To Watch artists of 2019.

On the nomination, Grace told us: “I spent so much time as a kid watching MTV so being recognised as one of the top 10 is like a massive honour.”

On her musical career, Grace revealed that it was thanks to her stepdad that she started playing guitar and singing: “Songwriting was something that I never thought I would have done but my mum and my stepdad met each other when I was 13 and he was a musician.

"I’d never really had a man in my house or my life before and I was pretty unsure about him, I wasn’t quite the biggest fan. As a peace offering, he gave me a guitar and was like ‘OK, I know you hate me so much but you need to try this.”

It was this offering that helped Grace find a place to vent out her emotions, she found songwriting a perfect vessel to help figure out her feelings: “I had a lot of things that I battled as a child, a lot of things that went on that I didn’t really understand why they happened and songwriting was something that he gave me to kind of understand emotions. As soon as I started doing it, it changed me as a person and helped me develop and grow into a happier person and someone that can really understand what they feel and release any negative emotions.”

On her hit ‘Why Her Not Me’, Grace explained what inspired her to write the song: her relationship, or lack thereof, with her father: “I was working with this guy, Mike Kentish, who is a long term collaborator of mine and kind of got to the studio and it was the day that I figured that the reason my dad didn’t raise me was because he had another life and another family. I kind of had no idea about and it hit me pretty hard that day and I sat down with Mike and we just kinda spoke it out and I kept on just saying ‘why her not me? Why did he pick them over me? Why not me?’ and the song literally wrote itself in an hour and a half.”

Reflecting on the song, Grace commented that: “It’s sad but it’s also empowering and uplifting and the responses I’ve had from people have been out of this world and nothing that I could have ever imagined.”

The singer/songwriter may have already achieved great things, but she’s just getting started. What can we expect from her in 2019?

“2019 – I’m really excited for it. I started writing what will be my album when I was 17 years old, and I’ve been adding to it since but right now feels like the time I really want to get down on it and get it together.”

To vote for Grace Carter to win MTV PUSH: Ones To Watch 2019, hit like on the Instagram post below:

https://instagram.com/p/BsnUlBhh9bo/