Savannah Maddison has been taking the world by storm, whether it's by her incredible charting-music or her philanthropy organization. With over 4.6 million likes on Tik Tok and an upcoming "Elevation Tour", she is definitely the influencer we should be following.
The Teen Magazine had a chance to talk to Savannah about everything from her childhood upbringing, how she wants to use her social media platform, and even a few music sneak peeks that you'll want to hear.
Quarantine Life
Quarantine has put a negative effect on a lot of people, but the extra time has had its benefits for others. Savannah shared her current quarantine experience and how she is looking at it all from a positive perspective."I’ve actually liked having the time just to be creative and work on new music and stuff.
So it’s been… it’s been pretty good for me. I’ve been checking in on like a lot of friends on facetime and phone calls and all that and going live a lot on social media. So that’s definitely been helpful for me but um, I know everybody’s in like a different place with it and I know some people are still quarantine are high risk and stuff so definitely continuing to check in on friends."
How It All Began
This 19-year-old singer-songwriter is already signed with CAA and is about travel the world on a tour with over 15 cities. But how did this all happen? Savannah gave insight into her childhood bringing and how she began singing for large crowds at a very young age.
Talking about her music career, Savannah told us that she started when she was little. She has always loved to sing, write music, and learn to play instruments. "I really started, umm, by singing the national anthem for sports teams in my area, so when I was in 5th grade I was chosen to sing the national anthem for the Miami Marlins which is our baseball team for Florida, and they booked me, which is crazy because I was just 10 years old and I didn’t expect to get that at all and it was really cool and it opened up a lot of other opportunities for me and I learned how to kind of write better music and eventually was able to move to Nashville after being signed and it just turned to a very amazing thing, and I’m glad that I get to do this now." She remembered.
Savannah Soldiers
Maddison is now an Award-Winning Philanthropist after founding her incredible 501c3 organization "Savannah Soldiers" with an aspiration to send letters of encouragement to active soldiers in the US military. The organization has already sent out over 350,000 outstanding letters and it is only the beginning. Savannah shared her initial inspiration for the company as well as how she went about starting it.
"You know, it was actually my best friend and her dad who was deployed to Afghanistan; he was in the military at the time.
Watching her family go through that was really touching to me as a 10-year-old. I didn't know a lot about military.
And so when I saw her go through that and watched her fell like that and how they serve and all that different kind of things, that are involved like her dad going away for so long and her missing him, and, you know, that the going away ceremonies and the different ways they're honored, seeing that as a 10-year-old was really cool, and I wanted to help out and be able to support their family and her dad when he was deployed, and so we started as a small letter writing projects, just the soldiers underneath him, and Wilson's dad, who's my best friend (she meant Wilson), and it grew like crazy, very fast.
We ended up having schools get involved and churches and youth groups, all kinds of different community resources around us. And it just I mean, just exploded super fast."
Letters
The young singer also shared the reason why she chose to use letters as the company's form of communication to the military:
"Yeah, I think it's a lost art. The reason that we picked a letter writing instead of sending care packages or, you know, emails or text messages originally was that it's just a guaranteed way, in the beginning, to connect my best friend with her dad, you know, they would send letters back and forth to each other. And I thought that that was really beautiful because they could.
That's something that you can hold on to and keep for a long time. You know, we have a lot of soldiers come back that have received our letters that bring them with them back to the United States and keep them with them as a way to remember how we remembered them while they were deployed. So it's something that's really not something we see as often today, but something that I think should be treasured and kept alive as you know, things change in our generations. But I love letter-writing personally. I write thank you notes to everyone, and all that stuff, whenever I get a gift or something like that, I think it's so much fun. "
Social Media Negativity
Social Media is unfortunately filled with negativity that can make one feel extremely discouraged. Aside from being a talented singer and philanthropist, Savannah Maddison is also a social media influencer, which means that she goes through the same negative comments as everyone else. The Tik Tok star shared her personal reaction to negativity on social media and how she deals with the comments by saying:"it’s definitely not easy for anyone to read, you know, negative things about themselves or hate comments.
Never easy to see but I have a really great support system. My mum, my sister live here in Nashville with me. So, If I’m ever feeling down, honestly, I just talk to them and I tell them what’s going on.
They’re normally there to talk to me and get me through it. The other thing now that makes it easier is you can just block people that are being negative. Never hesitate to do that. It helps a lot and it’s gonna make you feel better and that person cannot spread that negativity anymore. " To have the confidence to post on social media and ignore the negativity, shows just how mature and powerful this 19-year-old influencer really is.
Using Your Influence
Celebrities have a large social media platform that can be used for their own self-promotion, but It can also be used as an educational platform to help spark change in the world. Savannah shared her thoughts on using her own platforms for good, including promoting real social injustice issues including the Black Lives Matter Movement.
"I think that anyone who's not using their platform to promote positive change or any, you know, good, positive things in society, whatever political matter that might be, I think it's important to use that platform. And I think that it's a responsibility if you're given a following to be someone that remains positive and is always promoting good in society and things like that. "
"I've definitely spoken out on a couple of things and just shared messages that I thought were important to me, you know, and that I would like other people that follow me to know about like the Black Lives Matter movement."
"We need to be promoting, you know, a vision of unity for the United States and making sure that we know that we are the greatest country in the world because we are so many different cultures coming together, no matter what that looks like. And we need to show all citizens equal love. I think it's such a common sense thing. And I think that it's something that should be talked about, for sure."
Advice For Young Singers
Savannah, along with many current country-pop stars today, started their music careers at a very young age. Young women and young singers, in general, look up to them all for music inspiration and advice. The CAA singer gave some advice of her own to her young fans on how to advance their singing career, and any other career they want to go into."So if it's music, join the Choir at your school and do Chorus or sing at your church if you go to church and make an effort to go on YouTube and learn how to play three different instruments and.
You kind of develop your skills and practice your talents. You'll get a lot better. But it can be like that with anything.
Maybe your love is soccer or baseball or something like that. If you submerge yourself in it, you'll really grow a lot. And that's how. No, it's something that you want to do."
Sneak Peak
To everyone in the #Safannah Army: You're in luck! Savannah gave us a quick sneak peek into her new upcoming music:
"You know, I will give you like a little sneak peek into something that I'm very excited about and haven't talked about a ton. But I just finished my next single that I'm going to be releasing, which is so exciting and coming out super soon. I'm going to have a date set. So if you check out my social media, there's gonna be a lot of fun announcements around this new song that no one's heard yet. So it's going to be really, really cool to see what people think."
Fast Facts with Savannah Maddison
Q: Cats or Dogs? Dogs
Q: Chocolate or Ice Cream? Ice Cream
Q: Early Bird or Night Owl? Night Owl
Q: If you could trade lives with anyone for a day, who would it be?
Savannah: Oh, my gosh. I think Michelle Obama is like the coolest human. I'd like to just be her and feel like her for one day.
Q: What Board game do you hate the most?
Savannah: Monopoly
Q: What was the last thing you bought?
Savannah: I bought...yesterday, I probably bought a Starbucks coffee at the gas station.
Q: What Web site would we find the most if we searched your browser history?
Savannah: Probably shopping lists. I like online shopping. Now, with the
pandemic and staying at home.
Q: Would you leave your hometown forever or stay in your hometown forever?
Savannah: I love Nashville. I think I'd stay here forever.
Q: On a scale of 1 to 10. How cute were you as a kid?
Savannah: Oh, I was not cute. I was like a negative four. I really was.
Q: If you were about to be executed. What food we have in your last meal?
Savannah: McDonald's chicken nuggets
Q: If you had the world's attention for 30 seconds, what would you say or sing or would you just be quiet?
Savannah: I would say you're never too young to make a difference. And don't ever let anyone tell you that you are.
Thank you Savannah for your lovely insight and revealing updates on your upcoming music!
To keep up with Savannah, make sure to follow her Instagram @savannahmaddison and be on the lookout for her upcoming music and tour dates. The Teen Magazine can't wait to see her upcoming adventures, projects, and the big things in store in the future!
