Caroline Kole

Singer-songwriter Caroline Kole abandoned an early trajectory as a teenage country performer to dive into vibrant dance-pop, infusing the style with emotional openness on her self-titled EP of 2018. That pivot gained traction the same year when a VAVO remix of her track “Right Now” marked her first appearance on Billboard’s Dance chart.

Born Caroline Kudelko in Houston, Texas, she passed most of her childhood in Clearwater, Florida, where she started performing at seaside venues at eight. Once she completed seventh grade, her family moved to Nashville, and at fourteen she secured a performance slot at the 2012 CMA Music Festival. The following year a composition she penned about the Clearwater dolphin featured in the Dolphin Tale films surfaced in the documentary Winter, the Dolphin That Can. By sixteen she had joined Reba McEntire on tour and opened concerts for Blake Shelton, Alan Jackson, and additional headliners. She supplied backing vocals for a track on McEntire’s 2015 album Love Somebody, and Starstruck Records issued her debut full-length collection of relaxed country-pop, also self-titled, in 2016. Shifting her focus to pop, Kole released another Starstruck EP titled Caroline Kole in 2018 while studying Entertainment Industry Studies at Belmont University; VAVO’s version of “Right Now” carried her into the Dance chart’s Top 40. She continued with two further Starstruck EPs in 2019, Only Slightly Emotional and Freaking Out!.