Maddox Batson is, quite literally, the future of country music. The 14-year-old rising star has been on a rapid ascension lately, after dropping a pair of hit singles — “Tears in the River” and “I Wanna Know” — earlier this year. Just this summer the Tennessee-born-Alabama-rasied teen delivered a headline-making performance at Whiskey Jam in Nashville, and he recently co-wrote a song, “Tough,” that was picked up as a duet by Lana Del Rey and rapper Quavo.

PopCulture.com had a chance to chat with Batson, and he dished on writing “Tough,” his groundbreaking Whiskey Jam set, and how he almost had a completely different trajectory in life. “I wasn’t really incorporated in music, I used to do basketball,” Batson told us, noting that his parents “raised me on music… but I used to do sports and that was my thing.”

Batson’s sports dreams came to a halt, however, after he received an unfortunate diagnosis from his doctor. “I got this thing, it’s called Osgood-Schlatter disease, it’s in my right knee,” he explained, “and I literally could not play any sports anymore.”

After discovering that he “really had nothing to do throughout the summer,” Batson and his dad began performing music together, eventually going viral on TikTok. “I remember I was playing a song and I had almost 12,000 viewers just watching me at once,” he said of one of their early TikTok live performances. “It was just crazy. It was crazy.”

“From there,’ Batson said, “the music stuff just kept picking up traction, and me and my dad started writing songs. I got the opportunities to go into some crazy rooms with some sick songwriters and write some songs with them.”

While he had to put his sports dreams to rest, Batson noted that his musical rise brought a saying to mind. “When God closes a door, he always opens another. He closed my basketball and my sports dreams and he opened this one,” he said optimistically. “So I’m very blessed to have that opportunity, and that’s why I’m talking to you here today.”