It's no secret that Camila Cabello has had one helluva year with a series of hit singles, sold-out stadium performances, and powerful videos bringing awareness to real-world issues. Most recently, she's combined all of the above via her performances at last Friday's (December 8) iHeartRadio’s Z100 Jingle Ball. Taking the stage to perform to a packed crowd at NYC's Madison Square Garden, she also unveiled a video of herself introducing Project YouDoYou, which she explained is a way for young women to "come together, support each other, and in the process make this world a stronger, kinder place." Kicking off with the "kind comments campaign," the project promotes the idea that "behind every powerful girl is another powerful girl" and encourages young women to shape their lives via mentorship and by sharing their stories. As such, ahead of the show, we spoke with the hitmaker herself about everything from Riverdale to the globalization of pop music, and, of course, why she thinks YouDoYou is the best platform to empower other young women. Read our Q&A with her below to find out more:
Teen Vogue: Let's just jump straight into it! Why do you think Latinx artists and music are finally getting the mainstream recognition that they've deserved for so long right now? Is there something about the industry in 2017 that you think had something to do with this, or is there another external factor at play?
Camila Cabello: I don't know. I mean, I think that the good thing about social media and the internet is that I feel like it makes the world smaller and it just kind of breaks down barriers between languages, between people, between cultures, and I think that might have something to do with that. I've been listening to Spanish music forever because that's just not even Spanish music to me, it's just music. But I feel like with everything that's gone on this year and also with groups like K-pop groups performing on American award shows and making their way into the mainstream American industry, I just feel like there's a lot of just breaking barriers. Which I think is super beautiful, and I don't know exactly what there is to credit for that, but I'm definitely glad it's happening.
TV: Yeah, that's awesome. I know all of our readers are huge BTS fans too. I don't know if you've had a chance to meet the guys, but are you a fan?
CC: Yeah, it's so cool. I think they're super talented and cool. I saw them perform at the American Music Awards, which was their debut on American television, and I know everybody was super, super excited. A lot of my fans are their fans, too. They also mentioned "Havana" in this one interview! It was one of my favorite performances from the show. They put a lot of work into their choreography and into their performance. And you can tell that they really work hard, and I respect that a lot.
TV: Definitely. Like you said too, it's cool to see the mainstream music charts really diversify this year — like, look at the success of "Despacito." But while it's obviously been a huge year again for Latinx artists, what do you think about this all happening in this particular political climate? And I know you're someone who's been very vocal about what's happening with DACA and the Trump administration's anti-immigration policies, do you see your music as a way to speak out against that?
CC: Yeah, absolutely. I think that as you get older, you just realize what is really important, and I think that for me, I love music and music is my passion and more important than any statistic or numbers. It's what I do with my platform and how I help other people and how I do something that's bigger than just me. So I think I've felt more and more responsibility to speak for my people, and I feel more and more responsibility to do that every day. Especially in the political climate, like you said. I feel like I'm a pretty private person. I don't go on social media…I'm definitely introverted in that sense. I feel like my way of expressing myself is always through my music, through my art and through my performances. I literally had to make a conscious decision [to speak up], even after I made this first album, to do that more in the second one and in the next album. 'Cause that's just my medium of communicating.
TV: That's awesome. And is that why the album title changed to just Camila?
CC: No, the album title changed because I just moved on from the first title. The first title was about this broken relationship in my life. And I didn't want to give so much power to that situation because it didn't have power over me anymore. I just genuinely moved on, and it just got kind of exhausting talking about it, after I'd moved on.
TV: And instead, centering it on yourself is really powerful.
CC: Yeah, totally.
TV: So, moving on to the "Havana" music video itself, I know the telenovela concept really resonated a lot with your Latinx fans. So, I'm just kind of curious, why did you choose that theme? How was that video conceptualized? And why did you decide to go with the all-Latinx cast?
CC: Well, I think that it's really important to represent and to be proud of your story, and be proud of who you are. And I think that being the most "you" is what makes you different. Also, for me, when I was growing up in Miami, I didn't really have anybody that shared my story to look up to. So that's why, for a long time, I thought that having a career in music was not possible for somebody like me that was in Miami. I came from a family that didn't really speak English, and we had no money to move to LA and do meetings. That was not even in my vocabulary. So I think that's why, for a long time, it was only by chance that I auditioned for X Factor. If it weren't for that chance, I don't think that I would even be here. So I just think it's important for me to be authentic and to hopefully inspire young girls and young people that share a similar story.
And I think that's why I've also been so outspoken about the Dreamers, because I feel like we have the same story and I'm very lucky to not be in those circumstances today, but there's nothing really different between me and those kids. I could literally have been in that same situation and there's no fair reason as to why I'm not. So I think that you can't control why things happen, but you can control how you do your part to help.
TV: That's really, really powerful. I'm just struck as, also, like, the fellow child of first-generation immigrants: Were your parents supportive of your career?
CC: Any time I had raised interest in doing anything music related, my parents were definitely always like, "Wait till you're older," because I always had interest in music and I think that they knew that. But the focus was always on my schoolwork and my studies and things concerning education. But I think for them, they just want me to be happy. Like I could decide — which I'm not going to — but I could decide to be a dentist tomorrow, and they'll be like, "OK!"
TV: Yeah, I should make that the headline. Camila Cabello is planning on becoming a dentist. I'm sure your fans would love that.
CC: Oh, my God. [Laughs] They would come to my dentist office. They'd fake cavities for me.
TV: You could charge a lot for those fillings. But moving on to the Project YouDoYou initiative, which sounds really incredible: What drew you to that? And why was getting involved with it so important to you?
CC: I think it was just with everything that's going on in the world, in this political climate, but also just on the internet. I feel like you go on Twitter…but I don't even go on social media anymore because there's so much negativity and so much hatred. And it's not even necessarily stuff that's concerning me. Sometimes there's so much drama and beef with other people that I don't even like to look at because I just feel like it's so draining.
And sometimes you can see the worst parts of humanity on the internet. Like this celebrity and this celebrity and gossip and then stuff right next to things that are really going on, like what's happening in Syria, and those are both the top 10 trends. It's just very surreal, and I feel like that stuff just makes me feel very sad and just empty.
Sometimes it also feels like it's become cooler to become a trend to be mean or to drag people. I just don't feel like that's cool at all. I feel like it should be a bigger trend to be nice and to be supportive and use this as a way for good. There are definitely so many things that are happening on social media that are great because it keeps us informed. Especially with young people — we're more involved than ever in things going on in the country and speaking out about what's right and what's wrong — so that's really good. But kindness should always be cool. So many of my fans come up to me and they're like, "I just had to delete my Twitter because there were people telling me to kill myself." And I'm just like, "You know what? Delete your Twitter, that stuff is not important", but they shouldn't even be dealing with that stuff. For me, if I'm having a bad day and I walk on the street and a stranger says something nice to me or smiles at me, it makes my entire day. I feel like it's important to have those small acts of kindness, because they do really have a chain effect on the world. I really do believe that, and it's not even some cliché thing.
So Project YouDoYou is a really cool thing to be a part of because I want that to exist between my fans, between each other and the internet at large. I think that it would make everybody a lot happier, and that's a very easy way to change the world in a small way. It's just by making the next person you see happier than they were.
TV: Yeah, sometimes stan culture can be so toxic when, like you said, two celebrities are beefing and then their fans will go at each other. But I also have this theory that there's just so much negativity that's festering online and in social media — like all this infighting and this surreally horrific stuff in the world that's a click away — that it becomes this awful feedback loop sometimes. Like, if you're mired in that much negativity all of the time, how can you not also emit toxicity?
CC: Absolutely, and sometimes for me it's like that, where I've been having a great day and then sometimes I'll look at something that somebody said about me on the internet, and it puts me in this cloud of sudden paranoia and doubt, and "Oh, my God, am I this way? Did I sound like this?" Then it just makes you kind of more negative as a person and then suddenly you look past people instead of looking at them, because you're thinking about something else that made you feel negative. It takes you out of the present and it puts you in this bad mind-set. But with YouDoYou, it's just kind of doing the opposite. It's promoting this chain effect of people saying what they love most about their friend, or what they love most about each other, and I can't imagine that not making somebody's day or week. It makes my day or week whenever somebody says something like that about me.
TV: For sure, and obviously the bigger part of this conversation is also how we as a society tend to pit women against each other. Was this also part of your reason for joining this movement? Was there a personal experience for you that really solidified this as being an issue that's important to you?
CC: I think that every girl has experienced this. We've experienced girl-on-girl hate, and we've also experienced girl-on-girl love, and there's nothing more painful than girls being against each other or friends being jealous or catty with each other. There's nothing more hurtful than that. But there's also nothing more beautiful or amazing than friendships between girls and that sisterhood. Those girl-on-girl relationships between each other that we have are really important. They can either be super hurtful or it could feel really amazing. And it could feel like a sisterhood, and it can feel very protective and caring and nurturing. I would rather it be the best thing ever than the most hurtful thing ever. So I feel like every girl has experienced both, and this is about the good part of that.
TV: Definitely. OK, so one final curveball question. Do you know that actress Camila Mendes from Riverdale? What did you think about that one time she had to clarify that she's not a stan account for you and Shawn Mendes?
CC: Oh, my God, yes, that was so funny, and now she's killing it. Like, at first, I thought it was really funny and I thought that she was really funny because I'd seen her tweets, and I was like, "Oh, my God, she's so pretty, she's so funny," but I didn't realize that she was in the Riverdale cast. So I know that the show started blowing up, and I see so many of my fans watching it, and on Tumblr I see her face pop up in the show, and I think it's really cool. I'm so happy for her, she's killing it right now…I think I watched an episode one time, but I had just come from the airport and I was literally dying, [but] I really wanted to watch the show.
TV: Now it's on Netflix though, so no excuses!
CC: [Laughs] Definitely. I'll catch up.
Related: Camila Cabello Talks With Diane Guerrero About Speaking Up for Her Latinx Fans
