Kelsea Ballerini's career just keeps getting better and brighter with the RIAA Gold certification of her debut breakout single "Love Me Like You Mean It," which exceeded 500,000 sales and streams this past week.

"Love Me Like You Mean It" has brought Ballerini many of her firsts. Beyond being her first certified single, it also was the 21-year-old's first No. 1 hit, marking the first female to have her debut single reach the top spot on the Billboard Country Airplay Chart since Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take the Wheel" in 2006.

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

The Tennessee native doesn't take her success lightly, and recognizes that she is now a role model for upcoming female singer-songwriters.

"We’re just young people in this town that have no business having a ton of success yet," Ballerini told media at her rightfully earned No. 1 party for the hit. "People work their whole lives and never get to do what we’ve already been fortunate to do."

Ballerini isn't wasting time in keeping her career rolling. Her follow-up single, "Dibs," hit radio in late July, and scored the most radio adds in its debut week. It has already broken into radio's Top 30 and continues to climb.

Both "Dibs" and "Love Me Like You Mean It" are featured on Ballerini's freshman album, The First Time, which dropped earlier this summer. You can catch her on the road this fall as the opening act on Dan + Shay'Just the Right Kind of Crazy tour.

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