Stella Prince doesn't remember life before music. 

The prodigious 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Woodstock, NY, first began voice lessons at age four and hasn't looked back since, and now ranks among the most exciting young voices in folk music. Already a veteran of touring circuits, Prince is readying a debut album—due in late 2025—to follow a string of critically acclaimed singles, including 2024's "Dear Future Me" and "What's Mine," which collectively earned praise from celebrated outlets like No Depression, Forbes and the Nashville Scene. Over the past six months, she has walked the red carpet at the Grammys, Variety Hitmakers, the Billboard Women in Music Awards, the Variety Power of Women Nashville, She is the Music’s Women Sharing the Spotlight honors, the Americana Music Honors and Awards at The Ryman, performed at an event with Elle Magazine at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, and much more.

“I really have known my entire life that I was meant to do this," Prince says, with the trademark mix of humility and certainty that also permeates her thoughtful lyrics. Raised by fellow music lovers, Prince attended her first concert when she was three, watching folk icon Levon Helm perform and envisioning herself on a similar stage. She would try to attend "every show" that came through town, finding favorite artists like Pete Seeger and Peter Yarrow along the way. As she puts it, she quickly became "obsessed," and began working toward a career of her own. 

"When I was four, I went to my parents and asked for voice lessons," she says. "And I wanted a manager and all that stuff. For my entire life, I've known what I wanted." 

Homeschooled so she could focus on her craft, Prince entered an intensive, conservatory-style program at Bard College at the age of seven, honing her skills in "music theory, music history, piano, guitar, singing and performing" there among other preternaturally gifted musicians until she was 14. It made for an unorthodox childhood, one that she jokes was "like Dance Moms for singing," and gave her a sturdy foundation upon which she'd build her musical identity as she reached her teenage years. 

Ever a student of songwriting, Prince cites Karen Carpenter, Judy Garland and Patsy Cline as her primary three influences. She also draws inspiration from Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez, as well as contemporary pop artists like Katy Perry and Meghan Trainor, blending eras and genres into something distinctly her own. Not one to be hemmed in by labels, Prince also loves music from Broadway shows and from the 1940s. 

"I have their photos on my walls," Prince says. "My idols—my favorite singers, my favorite actors—are such a big part of my life. Not only do I have their photos up, but I have their quotes all over the place and I've read all of their memoirs. I've just learned so much from them." 

One of those quotes, which Prince calls her "favorite," isn't from a musician but, instead, a comedy luminary: the late, great Gilda Radner. That quote reads, "There are no guarantees in life. There are no promises. But there is you, and the chance to fight for what you want out of life. And, always, always, there is hope." 

Prince's music contains similarly compassionate wisdom, like the 2024 single "At Seventy," which imagines an older woman coming to terms with reaching the twilight of her life and finds Prince wondering what her own life will look like when she is the same age. Sonically, the spare and gentle arrangement gives Prince's agile voice ample space to shine, as she sings with the emotion and sense of dynamics typically only heard from veteran vocalists. 

Now based in Nashville, Prince has emerged as a torchbearer for a style Forbes dubbed "Gen Z folk." As Prince puts it, she makes “music for today’s world, updated with catchy melodies but rooted in the tradition of storytelling.” Lyrically, the stories Prince crafts tend toward exploring the complexities of young adulthood, which she unpacks with clarity, compassion and a subtle edge of grit. 

Grit, of course, is at the core of everything Prince does, including touring: By the time she turned 20, she'd booked over 1,000 shows entirely on her own, playing restaurants, bars, and listening rooms up and down the East Coast. “I still book all my own shows,” she says. “I just knew that if I worked harder than anyone else, I could make it happen.” 

As community minded as she is driven, Prince has also loosed her ironclad work ethic upon advocating for other women artists, founding an all-female folk showcase in Nashville in partnership with Change the Conversation, eventually taking the show on the road to cities like New York, Boston and London. The series is now an official part of AmericanaFest, Tin Pan South, and draws standing-room-only crowds, despite—or perhaps because of—Prince's decision to feature artists with small platforms. 

“The artists who need these opportunities aren’t the ones with 100,000 followers,” she says. “They’re the ones just starting out.” 

In March, Prince performed as part of MusicRow Magazine's annual Rising Women on the Row event, a coronation of sorts among Nashville industry insiders. She also held a spring residency at Anzie Blue, Nashville's only woman-owned venue. With a mile-long resume at such a young age, the sky's the limit for Stella Prince, whose star is sure to reach new heights when she completes and releases her debut full-length record later this year.

Memberships: ASCAP, Americana Music Association (AMA), Folk Alliance (FAI), Women in Music (WIM), and Nashville Songwriters Association (NSAI).