On a hot summer night at Bennett Barn in Zachary, McKenzie Claire Knapps turned her latest music video shoot into something closer to a girls’ night on camera.

Before filming began for “Me and My Girls,” attendees checked in, made their way into the barn and spent the first hour getting ready together. Around the room, women moved between a temporary tattoo bar, a hair extension station, makeup touch-ups and a merch table stocked with pieces for last-minute outfit additions. The setup gave the night the feel of a pre-party, with groups laughing, fixing hair, checking outfits and learning choreography between takes. There were missed counts and boots scuffing across the barn floor, but with each run-through, the crowd moved more confidently. By the time the cameras started rolling, the barn had shifted from a casual hangout into a full production set, ready to bring “Me and My Girls” to life.

The all-female “pasture party” brought together local women from the 225 area to appear in the video for Knapps’ newest single. For the Louisiana-born country artist, the event was more than a backdrop. Rather than staging a glossy version of country life for the camera, Knapps built her music video around the women and places closest to her. 

“We have so much of a community that we don’t take advantage of,” Knapps says. “There’s just so much untapped potential in this entire state, especially here.”

Knapps has been chasing the stage since childhood. At 8 years old, she won VH1’s reality show “I Know My Kid’s a Star,” then spent time pursuing opportunities in Los Angeles before eventually finding her way back home. Around that same age, she first performed onstage at the Old South Jamboree in Walker, Louisiana.

Country music always had a hold on her, but her influences stretched beyond the genre. She grew up loving old-school rock ’n’ roll, especially Elvis, and that mix of country roots and rock-and-roll edge still shows up in how she talks about her sound.

At 20, Knapps moved to Nashville on her own. But after a few years there, she began to feel disconnected from the kind of music she wanted to make. To her, parts of the industry felt more performed than lived-in.

“I got really sick of seeing people walk around Nashville with skinny jeans and a hat,” she says with a laugh.

For a while, that frustration made her question whether she wanted a place in country music at all. Eventually, she decided that if she didn’t like what she was seeing, she could help change it.

“This is the kind of country music that I want to make,” she says. “You can’t run from who you are, and that’s why I’m in country.”

Now based in Louisiana, Knapps still travels to Nashville for work, but home has become central to her identity as an artist. Coming back helped her reconnect with the kind of country music she wanted to make: loud, raw and genuine.

Knapps has four singles released and seven more ready to go. Her latest single, “Me and My Girls,” was released May 15. While Knapps says she does not write many traditional love songs, she considers this track a love song in its own way.

“My girls are my first love,” she says. “I learned what I wanted in my marriage one day from the girls I had in my life. My girls kind of built me.”

Her favorite lyric captures that loyalty: “Ex and I, we don’t get along, but me and my girls are still going strong.”

Knapps wrote the song in her early 20s, but says it took until now for the timing to feel right. For her, that timing was less about following a set creative process and more about trusting when a song is ready to become something bigger.

“I’m not ever confined to a process,” she says. “I just kind of do things when they feel right. I’m all about the experience.”

That instinct carried into the video shoot. By building the shoot around Louisiana girls instead of hired extras, Knapps made the crowd feel less like background and more like the focal point of her song.

Knapps says she would love to release an album, but as an independent artist, a project that large has to make sense on more than one level. For her, the timing has to feel right creatively while also being realistic financially.

“I would love an album. However, I would love an album that financially makes sense,” she says.

She already has another event in the works for an upcoming song she is teasing, “Makes Me Feel Fancy.” First, though, she is focused on finalizing and releasing the “Me and My Girls” video filmed at Bennett Barn.

For Knapps, “Me and My Girls” is both a single and a statement: the country music she wants to make starts with the people around her.