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.