A can’t miss performer at this year’s Lollapalooza, R&B/Pop singer/songwriter Alessia Cara is an artist with talent well beyond her age. With chart toppers Here and Wild Things under her belt, the 20-year-old Def Jam signee, who’s Gold-certified debut album, Know-It-All, is someone you probably would run into the street and not know who she is with how much she looks like your regular everyday person.
So it’s no wonder that the Canadian-bred singer’s two chart-topping hits are both about being non-social and not wanting to be a part of the popular in-crowd. With her debut single, Here, being the record she is most known for with it’s powerful haunting backdrop, as Cara sings emphatically about being at a party she secretly hates being at and doesn’t want to be at. The video is very well put together too and really brings the record to life with how much it matches the actual concept of the record, with it showing Alessia at a party with everything that goes on at a party, but her being the only one moving, as if the party isn’t actually going on while she’s their and everything at the party is like it’s frozen in time. Known as a sleeper hit, the song reached as high as the top 5 here in the United States and the top 20 in Canada.
Cara’s other hit record, Wild Things, also follows a lot in ways to her debut single’s theme of having an anti-cool kids stance. This record is more straight-up pop with it’s more fast-paced and percussive tone though and allows her to also show just how much of a true artist she’s too, as she plays some guitar on the record too. With it’s very anthemic and slow, built-up sound, this is a record that when you play it you can’t help, but to get inspired and keep playing it over and over again. Even if you don’t like Pop, this is one of those records, you just can’t get enough of.
With Alessia’s very strong vocals and songwriting abilities that she shows off very well in both of these records, you can see why she has a voice that’s one well beyond her years and why she’s a rising R&B/Pop star that will be around for plenty of years to come. With how much she’s able to create anthems with such ease and how much she was able to breakout over the past year, you can also see why she was awarded as Breakthrough Artist of the Year earlier this year at the 2016 Juno Awards.
So, while you can, you should check her out next Friday on the Pepsi stage at this year’s Lollapalooza before she graduates to the main stage. As with the talent that Cara has and her already slow, but steady climb to pop stardom, she’s almost assuredly going to be playing the main stage at Lolla in only a few short years, in much the same way that Hip-Hop and local Chicago artists Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa already have (or in Mensa’s case are about to). So catch her before everyone else eventually catches on to this very great once-in-a-lifetime talent.