Camila Cabello: On The Record
Joining for the latest installment of On The Record, Camila Cabello is set to clue us in and discuss her highly anticipated fourth album C,XOXO on the release day.
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00:00All right, we'll start off with your your description.
00:05How excited were you like just creating this album, you know, CXOXO?
00:09How was it?
00:10I mean, it was such a it was such a different process than any of the other albums because,
00:16you know, it really felt like I mean, that's why it's signed CXOXO.
00:21You know, there were no other co-writers.
00:24It was really me, Gincho and Jasper, my producers, Gincho is my executive producer, and we just
00:31kind of bunkered down and Bart, my vocal engineer, and we just, yeah, we were in it for a year
00:39and a half.
00:40And I was just every morning I would just kind of write lyrics and, you know, I just
00:46like really feels like so from me to you, like unfiltered and like the purest expression
00:52of myself creatively at this time.
00:55So yeah, I'm really, really excited for everybody to hear because I really feel like it's my
01:00best work so far.
01:01That's amazing.
01:02Where did you find most of the recording happening?
01:05Most of the recording happened in Miami, which is very fitting for a album that is dedicated
01:13to Miami.
01:14But then there were also there was like one song which you can hear that it's called 20
01:21different things where we it was a week that we were recording and writing at Electric
01:27Lady.
01:28So that's what I'm saying about across the bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn.
01:36So yeah, most of it was in Miami, a little bit in LA, a little bit in New York, and actually
01:40some of it in the Bahamas.
01:41We took a little Bahamas trip.
01:42Nice.
01:43What were your main inspirations when you're compiling this new album together?
01:47Obviously you mentioned Miami.
01:48What else comes to mind?
01:49We had a lot of visual inspiration from Spring Breakers.
01:52Like, I basically I had put a little Pinterest board together.
01:57And I had a Pinterest board the first week of being in the studio, I had a Pinterest
02:02board three months in, I have a Pinterest board for like everything I do.
02:06I had a Pinterest board a week ago when making this music video.
02:12And I think about six months in, when I was kind of writing these songs, I was taking
02:20pictures of this kind of like girl gang energy, like the Spring Breakers, like girls with
02:26like the ski masks on and it feeling kind of very empowering and kind of dangerous and
02:32yeah, like tapping into that kind of like dangerous side of yourself.
02:39So that was a big reference.
02:40And I was listening to a lot of rap.
02:43I was listening to Ethel Cain.
02:46I was reading a lot of poetry.
02:48I was reading a lot of female writers.
02:49I was reading a lot of Sally Rooney and books about writing.
02:53So yeah, it was, there's a lot, a lot of me soaking things in so that I could, you know,
03:00pull from a lot of different places to, you know, write the shit out of it.
03:05Yeah.
03:06When you put all that together, is there any overall like theme that you have when you
03:09think of this album?
03:10I think there's a big theme of like coming of age and celebrating girlhood and what it
03:16is to be a girl that's learning to be a woman.
03:20It's going.
03:21Absolutely.
03:22So obviously when this comes out, all the songs will be out, but right now the ones
03:25that haven't been released, what is the song you're most excited for fans to listen to?
03:30I'm most excited for people to listen to Chanel number five because I feel like that was when
03:40I wrote that song.
03:41That's when I was like, this is CXOXO.
03:44This is the world of CXOXO.
03:48This is the voice.
03:50This is the perspective that I'm going to kind of write the rest of the album from like
03:55this kind of lip gloss, kind of like very in control, whimsical, but also kind of harder
04:06kind of perspective.
04:09And then also Dade County Dreaming, because that's the other kind of centerpiece of the
04:14album, which is like the love letter to Miami.
04:17And also Hot Up Town with Drake, because it's a banger and I just, that's one of my favorite
04:25songs on the album.
04:27So fun.
04:28All right.
04:29Kind of wrap it up like the experiences of making it.
04:30Does any memory stick out as one you'll remember the most during the making of this album?
04:37I'm thinking about this line in this song called Dream Girls, where we went to the Bahamas.
04:43I mean, there's so many stories when it comes to every line, literally, I can tell you like
04:48kind of where it comes from or a story, but it's just made me laugh because there's a
04:53line in Dream Girls where we were at, we were at the Bahamas because we went to a studio
04:59in the Bahamas for 10 days to finish making the album.
05:03And I say finish because we still worked on it for like three months more after that.
05:07It was not done.
05:08And there's a line where I was going to fly my friends out to the Bahamas to just hang
05:13out.
05:14But then I was like, guys, I am so like busy, I was like so much writing that I still have
05:20to do and so much work left to be done.
05:23And we basically got into a fight.
05:26But I had already like written that line because I was going to fly them out.
05:30Because there was a line in the song, I flew the girls to the Bahamas for a night out.
05:35And we just my friends and I always laugh at that line because we're like, we didn't
05:38go to the Bahamas.
05:39We actually just got into a fight.
05:41That's so funny.
05:42So like, yeah, the best memory is something that didn't even happen.
05:45Yeah, exactly.
05:46I don't even, that's not even funny, but it's just a story.
05:51Hey, we'll take it.
05:53Absolutely.
05:54So just like a brief talking about the below like these, these songs and I don't know,
05:58again, it can be anything that comes to mind what you want people to be like feeling when
06:01they listen to it.
06:02We'll start with He Knows featuring Lil Nas X.
06:05What can you tell us about that?
06:06He Knows is that song that you play before you go out.
06:11You know, I really wrote it about just like, what is the song that I'm writing for my friends
06:17and I before we go out to feel our most confident before we're about to snatch up a man's soul.
06:24I Love It is up next after that.
06:26I Love It is a song that you play when you're driving through the highway.
06:33And I wrote it about just feeling powerful and badass, swerving, swerving lanes.
06:42Love it.
06:43Chanel number five, what can you tell us about that?
06:45I wrote Chanel number five about this guy that I used to date who loved that scent on
06:53me Chanel number five and it's my favorite song I've ever written in my entire life.
07:01I can't even it actually just made me emotional to even think about that song.
07:10Even on zoom.
07:11That's how you know it's real hot uptown featuring Drake.
07:16The fact I'm like emotional I guess right now because I'm I'm like, I just had like
07:23these kind of clips of the songs playing in my head and I'm like, I literally before I
07:32went, I was doing this.
07:37I was like 14 singing I better find your love and I better find your heart and I was like
07:49singing headlines and like, I just I was listening to Drake since I was so young and the fact
07:57that I have a song with him.
08:00Yeah.
08:01And the fact that there's such bangers is like, it's just so it's just like one of those
08:08like, wow, I could never have told you that this was gonna happen, you know, so it's it's
08:14really I really am.
08:16Yeah, it's like emotional to think about like, what I feel like I've kind of achieved on
08:21this album.
08:22Wow.
08:23It's gonna be chills thinking about because that's such a cool thing.
08:26Congrats again, so much.
08:28Last one, Dade County Dreamin featuring JT and Young Miami.
08:33I also feel like this song, you know, Dade County Dreamin, Dade County is, um, Dade County
08:39Dreamin.
08:40You know, I've lived in Dade County all my life.
08:43I moved there when I was seven years old from Cuba and I have so much love for the city
08:50that I grew up in because it really took my family and I in when you know, our homes
08:55were just like not the right place for us and I live there now and I love that line
09:03in that I wrote that it's like party in the city that party like I forgot I was famous
09:12party in the city that raised us because it just feels like that's how it feels when I
09:17go there now when I'm out with my friends.
09:19It's like, yeah, like this city raised us and we have so many memories here and I still
09:24get to experience it like in experience it in different ways.
09:29It's amazing.