In an interview with Apple Music about her 2018 debut Camila, Camila Cabello told a story about a conversation she had at a Grammy party. It was a guy—a famous guy, a celebrity. “A flirtationship”, she called it. But even as their chat warmed up, Cabello sensed the guy was still performing, like he was stuck in a loop he couldn’t turn off. It freaked her out a little, but it also reminded her that too much polish can ruin anything. “I feel like the human stuff, the twisted stuff, the little isms—that’s what makes people interesting,” she said. In a culture where relatability has to share space with professionalism and hustle, Cabello has become one of the most grounded, appealing artists in pop, the kind of singer whose real-life circumstances—a young Cuban American woman, a little OCD, hopelessly romantic—comes through in her music without ever seeming idiosyncratic or self-involved. The conversation at the party? She wrote a song about it called “In the Dark”, because that’s what Camila Cabello does.
Born in Havana in 1997, Cabello sang with the reality-show group Fifth Harmony before starting a solo career around 2017. Her best tracks—“Havana”, “Crying in the Club”, “Sēnorita”, “She Loves Control”—merge the sound and feel of classic Latin pop (from Celia Cruz to Calle 13) with contemporary R&B and the singer-songwriter intimacy of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. As much as Cabello is a product of her upbringing, she’s also a reflection of the merging of Latinx culture with the global mainstream—a sense of responsibility not lost on her, but not steering the ship either. And as big as she gets, she works to stay grounded. “The human part of life is what makes you happy,” she says. “Just, like, conversations with people. Even walking in the street and having a stranger smile at you—that’s what really makes you happy.”