A few days before the talent show, I went to a pep rally at school that also included a talent show. I really… — Austin Mahone

I hit play, the music started, and that's when my nerves got the worst, because it was like, There's no going back now. So I just went for it.

And then I got into the car to head back to our hotel, and when the driver turned on the engine, there it was: my single "Say Somethin" coming out of the car speakers, being played on the radio, just at that exact moment. It was my first time ever hearing myself on radio, and it was almost overwhelming. This is weird, I thought. This is so cool. But this is just strange. It's like, I was living this new life every day, but it was still hard to believe it was my life.

One day when I was twelve or thirteen, I was hanging out with some friends, and I heard T-Pain for the first time. Immediately, I was like, Oh, man, what's this? This is different from what I'm used to listening to, and I love it. By this time, I wanted something new, so I started listening to more R&B and hip-hop. From there, I started listening to Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Drake, and all those guys. At the time, I thought country and R&B were totally different worlds, but now that I actually spend most of my life singing and writing and thinking about music, I can see they're kind of similar. Before you say I'm crazy, think about this: In country music, the singers are really soulful, and you can just hear all the emotion on their voices. They mean everything they say. And R&B is the same way. It's like every note, every word, is telling you exactly how the singers feel about what they're singing about. It's just that in country music, all that feeling is usually about a truck, and in R&B, it's more often about a girl. And for me, girls are a lot more fun to sing about than a truck. All joking aside, I feel like all music is the same, when you get down to it. It's about communicating emotion. And that's what I love about it so much. I wouldn't want to spend my life any other way.