Over the course of just two years, Olivia Rodrigo went from a singer/songwriter and actor with leading roles on Disney shows Bizaardvark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series to a record-breaking superstar with an armful of GRAMMY Awards.
As she accepted her trophy for Best New Artist at the GRAMMY Awards ceremony in 2022, a tearful Rodrigo described the honor as "my biggest dream come true," shouting out her family and friends as well as thanking her label for recognizing the potential in her songwriting before she ever scored her first hit.
In this episode of R\un The World, GRAMMY.com's series spotlighting music's most remarkable women, revisit the two years that turned Rodrigo from an up-and-coming singer/songwriter into a bonafide superstar.
Rodrigo's vivid songwriting skills are at the core of all of her success. In early 2021, she released her debut single "drivers license," an emotive heartbreak ballad that quickly caught fire, earning her a massive new fan base and a number of industry distinctions. The song debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100, making Rodrigo the youngest artist to do so; it also broke a number of streaming records at the time, amassing nearly 1.5 billion Spotify streams to date.
Four months later, Rodrigo unveiled her debut album SOUR, a project that proved that "drivers license" was no fluke. It won Rodrigo a GRAMMY Award for Best Pop Vocal Album in 2022. "drivers license" got recognition at the awards show, too, earning the trophy for Best Pop Solo Performance.
Watch the video above for a full review of Rodrigo's impressive career to date, and check back to GRAMMY.com for more episodes of Run the World.
The Meteoric Rise Of Olivia Rodrigo: How The "Drivers License" Singer Became Gen Z's Queen of Pop