IN less than a year, Meghan Trainor has gone from being a successful but relatively unknown songwriter to a Grammy-nominated global star.

Her track All About That Bass catapulted the Massachusetts-born singer into the limelight and she is set to play four UK gig dates in April, including the Ritz in Manchester.

With lyrics including "Yeah it's pretty clear, I ain't no size two" and "All the right junk in all the right places", the song has been held up by some as an anthem for body confidence but also criticised for allegedly “shaming” thin women and being anti-feminist.

Whatever your opinion on the 21-year-old's pop-ode to fuller figures, there is no denying its success with sales of more than six million copies, four weeks at number one and two Grammy Award nominations.

Meghan said: "All my friends are songwriters and producers and I’ve lived all their dreams.

"They all tell me that, they’re like, ‘you accomplished what we try to do every day’.

"Cause as songwriters, yes our goal is for other popular singers to sing our songs, but the real goal inside is, we want to be singing these."

Beyoncé — who reportedly passed over the chance to record All About That Bass — is said to be a fan of Meghan's music and Michael Buble did a cover of her hit on Instagram.

Meghan, who has been producing songs since the age of 13, said: "I’m obsessed with him.

"One of my goals in life, like off my bucket list, is make sure Michael Buble knows I exist and the fact that he sang my song — I died.

"I saw it on Instagram and I was just, I remember I was lying in bed and I just got up and was like ‘mum did you see it?’

"She was like ‘I saw it, I saw it’.

"I’ve been to five concerts maybe, and his was one and I cried.

"I was like ‘oh he’s so good on track, he’s probably terrible live’. And he was better live. He’s so funny."

When she was still in high school, Meghan landed a deal with a Nashville music publishing company and started writing songs for artists from all corners of the music world.

Now an artist in her own right, she released debut album, Title, last month which features a duet with John Legend and her single, Lips are Movin, which is out now.

Although All About That Bass lost out to Sam Smith's Stay With Me for record of the year and song of the year at Sunday's Grammy Awards, she is delighted that "for the rest of my life, I’ll be introduced as ‘Grammy nominated Meghan Trainor’."

Looking to the rest of the year, she said: "It's gonna be my year to really get people, let people start to know Meghan Trainor and who she is and what she’s about.

"And I’m so excited."

Meghan Trainor will be at the Ritz in Manchester on Thursday, April 9.