Second Wind<\/em>, out Oct. 24. She\u2019s writing from a joyous, thriving space, both personally and professionally. The album marks her first release after signing with BBR Music Group\/BMG Nashville in February and takes inspiration from her relationship with current boyfriend, musician and Kay\u2019s longtime bandmember Rocko Beall.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cIt was a very conscious decision to describe what it felt like opening my heart again to someone else,\u201d says Kay. \u201cI was very much living that, so I was like, \u2018Let me just start writing love songs,\u2019 which I had never done. You don\u2019t just flip a switch and automatically you\u2019re trusting and open to love again. I wanted to take people through that process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe album is a confluence of country, pop and shades of hip-hop. Songs such as \u201cFeminine Energy,\u201d with its nod to Christina Aguilera\u2019s 1999 hit \u201cWhat a Girl Wants,\u201d revel in flirty, starry-eyed romance. Other tracks, such as \u201cWhat He Does,\u201d delve into a lover\u2019s sweet, emotionally restoring gestures, while questioning why it was so hard for an ex to do the same.<\/p>\n
\n\tShe calls another song on the album, \u201cRight Now,\u201d her \u201cAlexandra Wallen\u201d moment. \u201cIt\u2019s like with the 808s and stuff,\u201d she says, referring to the sound Morgan Wallen has made famous that incorporates hip-hop elements. \u201cBefore when we were writing for the project, I would\u2019ve been like \u2018This doesn\u2019t fit. But I thought the album was done, so we wrote it and the label was like \u2018Yeah, this definitely needs to go on the album.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe adds, \u201cI think that\u2019s why people always overwrite their albums because the good stuff really starts to happen when you\u2019re not itching and scratching for it. You\u2019re just going, \u2018Okay, let\u2019s write something we think will be fun and cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tKay may be releasing just her second album, but she\u2019s been honing her musical talents for nearly two decades, first writing songs at age 15. Her early career involved voice-over work, musical theater and commercials. She initially released hip-hop and R&B music before transitioning into country music in 2022, thanks to her viral \u201cCoffee Covers\u201d Facebook videos that featured Kay singing \u201890s country songs while concocting coffee recipes.<\/p>\n
\n\tShe\u2019s taking songs from her new album on the road by headlining her Second Wind: The Tour through November, and next year will join Old Dominion for shows in Australia and New Zealand. She\u2019s also doubling down on her \u201cCoffee Girl\u201d branding, having opened her own coffee shop in her home state in June.<\/p>\n
\n\tKay, Billboard<\/em>\u2019s Country Rookie of the Month for October, opens up about her forthcoming new album, touring with Jelly Roll, opening The Coffee Girl and more.<\/p>\n\n\tHow did the song \u201cFeminine Energy\u201d come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWe were at a writing retreat in upstate New York and I was like, \u201cI want to write a song about how he makes me a girly girl.\u201d I just feel safe around him. I was in the session writing \u201cFeminine Energy\u201d and Rocko came upstairs and ended up helping us write the rest of the song.<\/p>\n
\n\tI had said this as soon as Rocko and I got together, I realized it was a very different relationship than the relationship I was previously in. Everybody around me saw a change in me. I was just softened. In my past relationship, I was the person that was always prepared to handle things if things went south. That\u2019ll toughen you as a woman, just being in a relationship where you\u2019re just waiting for the other shoe to fall. It\u2019s exhausting. <\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Rocko and I first got together, I remember my shoe was untied while I was walking through the airport. He bent down and tied my shoe, and it was something that just stuck in the back of my head. With my ex, I would\u2019ve walked around with my shoes untied all day.<\/p>\n
\n\tYou opened shows for labelmate Jelly Roll last year. What did you learn from touring with him?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tHe just moves in a different way than a lot of people do. He\u2019s got a hustle about him that is so gritty to his core, and he\u2019s just willing to do anything he\u2019s got to do to make stuff happen. And he\u2019s a preacher at heart. He\u2019s always dropping crazy knowledge, and he\u2019s become a great friend. He remembers being the underdog, and I have very much felt like that in my career, especially accomplishing so many things as an independent artist. I didn\u2019t get the accolades or opportunities I probably should have gotten based on the numbers I was putting up because I wasn\u2019t signed. Jelly was like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to take this independent girl and put her in arenas.\u201d He changed my life.<\/p>\n
\n\tYour song \u201cStraight for the Heart\u201d is going to radio next month. What has it been like gearing up to send a song to country radio?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tAnother thing that Jelly did for me was he let me go into all of the radio rooms, which was very generous, on his tour. He would have all these radio people come in and was like, \u201cGo meet everybody at radio.\u201d I\u2019m coming into radio tours having already met many of these people and that\u2019s huge. All I\u2019ve Ever Known<\/em>, that was very much a concept record, just me writing where I was at. Now, I think I have a lot more songs that, universally, people are liking.<\/p>\n\n\tYou got your start making coffee videos on TikTok back in 2020. In June, you opened up a coffee shop, The Coffee Girl, in Illinois. What was that process like?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI ended up going back to the owners of a specific caf\u00e9, where I used to live in a loft apartment above the shop. I went to the owners and told them I wanted to open a coffee shop in my hometown, and I said, \u201cI want your blessing because I don\u2019t want to open anything that is in competition with your shop.\u201d And they said, \u201cWe are talking about wanting to retire. Would you consider buying this place?\u201d I was blown away. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted for it, and they are happily retired and still come to the shop all the time.<\/p>\n
\n\tDoes entrepreneurship run in the family?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tMy dad has run businesses since he was 21 years old when he opened his first dry cleaners. He ended up having five of them. He\u2019s a smart businessman and I think we\u2019re going to be an incredible team as we continue to open new locations.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhere do you want to open your next location?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWe hope to open one in Nashville.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat is your favorite order at the shop?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tWe rebranded some of the items that were there and did some more extravagant coffees and foods. I always got the turkey bacon melt with chips. So, we call that the AK on the menu now. We have a Greek salad and I\u2019m part Greek, so we called it Yaya\u2019s Greek Salad, because that\u2019s what I call my grandmother.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat is the first concert you ever saw?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tI think it was the Backstreet Boys.<\/p>\n
\n\tMost recent song you listened to?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\t\u00a0\u201cExes\u201d by Tate McRae. She\u2019s such an icon.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat artists do you think are underrated right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\tEmily Ann Roberts. Her voice is insane. And Laci Kaye Booth and Mae Estes, but I have a feeling all of those girls are right on the cusp.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illinois native Alexandra Kay first broke through as an independent artist writing songs about her shattered heart, but on her new album, for the first time she\u2019s writing from the perspective of a healed heart. Explore See latest videos, charts and news In 2023, Kay self-released her debut album, All I\u2019ve Ever Known. Containing songs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2047802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[309228],"class_list":["post-2095883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-genre-country"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Josh-Ross-Talks-New-Album-Later-Tonight-Touring-With.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2095883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2095884,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095883\/revisions\/2095884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2047802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2095883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2095883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2095883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Billboard](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/2HpFicp.png\")