X Factor Winner Melanie Amaro’s Aiming For Second Shot At Stardom

X Factor Winner Back With New Music

You may remember “X Factor’s” Melanie Amaro, the show’s 2011 winner, who scored a $5 million recording contract with Epic Records and counted music Svengali Simon Cowell as a mentor.

But fast-forward to 2016, and the South Florida native has parted ways with Epic and replaced her pop sound with a distinct old school vibe. Amaro is back with a new sound, a new image – she dyed her hair bright red a day before her interview – and a new outlook on life.

“I kind of stepped back for a little bit and reevaluated my whole life,” Amaro told BOSSIP of her hiatus. “But one thing that was so certain to me was that I could not turn the music off. Music is always in my head. I know this is what I was born to do. I know I was born to sing and do music so no matter how much I stand back and say ‘I don’t have what it takes,’ music kept pushing me.”

Amaro is getting ready to drop a new album, “Nice/Nasty,” – about the two sides to her personality – on her own label this Spring, and just released her new single, “The One,” about her future soul mate.

“The music is about myself, feel good music,” she said. “Music that I want to make that I know people will be able to relate to. The song, “The One,” is me searching for my soul mate. The person that I know God made specifically for me. But I love the music I’m making now, because now I have creative control. And I’m able to really get my hands dirty.”

The starlet added: “I’m glad to be able to have input and sing what I want to sing about and have certain emotions when I’m singing a song, where as before, it was ‘sing this, sing this, sing this,’ and I had no choice but to just do that. It’s just growing as an artist, and I’m able to be more creative.”

Amaro – who wowed “X Factor” viewers with her rendition of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” – said her new music is a mix of ballads and up tempo songs that have a 90s vibe, and has been listening to Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton and Whitney Houston for inspiration.

“It’s a mix of all of that,” she said. “The hip hop, the R&B, the soul, and then people love the big ballads from me because that’s what I was known for.”