Who is Alessia Cara? Meet The Artist Finding Balance Between Love, Pain, and Exaggeration
It’s been almost a decade since Here was released, and while this song initially started out as invisible to the world, introverts became drawn to its relatable lyrics surrounding being in bustling social settings. Now a triple platinum song in various countries, this song was Alessia Cara’s debut single, igniting her rise as an artist and helping her discover her creative voice.
Her lyrics and themes have since evolved and have become what she considers her best work so far – her newest album, Love & Hyperbole. With this latest record, which was released on 14 February, we got to chat with Cara about it and her journey to crafting it.
This new project has roots in Cara’s inspirations and background. “It really, definitely informed a lot of my songwriting just because of the openness that it brought me,” she shares when chatting about how growing up in Brampton, Canada has influenced her perspective on music. Cara’s music has a distinctive sound that has stuck with her, from her hits like Scars To Your Beautiful and Stay to her newest work like Dead Man and Slow Motion on Love & Hyperbole. Much of her work is inspired by artists of the 60s and 70s. “When I am looking for a fresh perspective … or fresh inspiration, I always tend to go back in time,” she tells us, listing admirable artists like Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles. While Cara’s album is uniquely her own, it also reflects others who have influenced her.
The process of creating each song differed depending on the track. “[They] felt like they already kind of existed in a way and I just caught them somehow,” Cara shared while discussing how (Isn’t It) Obvious and Fire were some of the easiest songs to write. Other songs, like Slow Motion and Nighttime Thing, took longer to fine-tune and evolve into their completed works. She used to think that going into the studio and not making something was a waste of time, but this time around, she felt like she had personal breakthroughs in becoming more confident in her writing and developing songs over time if needed. Cara wrote over 45 songs for the album with each one inspired by a very real feeling, but she felt that it was important to keep the songs that she’d regret not releasing for the world to hear.
“It’s never a waste of time to come in and try … It’s never a waste to meet new people and just try something.”
Many different events and emotions inspired Love & Hyperbole, and Cara had to find ways to connect with fans while bringing her life into her music. “I love to be self-indulgent, and I love to just make whatever I want to make … but I also am mindful of the fact that there are people who listen to my music and look to me for guidance … [and] relatability,” Cara observes as she delves into balancing writing about herself with writing what others can relate to. Since many of her songs (and especially her hits) focused on melancholy feelings, she found it challenging to create music about happiness that she’s felt more recently. Sometimes, this meant that this artist had to step away from writing lyrics for a bit and come back to it with a fresh perspective.
With the title of the album, Love & Hyperbole, directly referencing the connections between passion and dramatizing emotions, some songs held more than one meaning. Cara spoke specifically about Dead Man and the complexity of this track. “[Dead Man] in some ways could still be considered a love song, it’s just maybe not about … the love I that I necessarily want for my life … but about the love of an idea of a person or the potential of a person,” she shared as she reflected on it. Songs like this on the album show how many different emotions could be involved in loving someone and how even more sensations can arise as a love fizzles out. Other songs were crystal clear love songs though, without any fear or negativity attached. Cara chatted about how Fire “feels very open… it’s strictly just a love letter to someone in my life”, focusing on love as it happens, without any fear or stubbornness involved in trying to predict the future.
Overall, this release explored both new and recurring topics that Cara explored more. “There’s a lot of new forms of love that I’ve experienced,” she said. Being so in love in a relationship led to different music compared to the usual sad subject matter she has examined, especially with the sense of security and comfort that came with it. She still delved into other painful topics though, such as impermanence and death, which she had always been afraid of. With love comes pain and sorrow sometimes, and Cara recognizes this. Still, she shared how her views of love have shifted to show her that having real love means that you can be true to yourself.
“Love makes you bigger instead of smaller.”
The album title alludes a lot to how Cara is a very emotional person (which she claimed is because her zodiac sign is Cancer). “On one side of it, I was definitely using hyperbole in a humorous way and kind of allowing it to pacify some of the heavier emotions,” she shared. Things surrounding love could feel like the end of the world for her, but she truly was feeling these exaggerated emotions. Still, she used hyperbole to soothe the heavier parts of songs, such as on Run Run with its magnified lyrics but downcast feelings under the surface. Even though she recognizes that sometimes these feelings are amplified exponentially, Cara still sees the importance of having a contrast between these thoughts. “You cannot have love and joy without really knowing loss and pain and vice versa,” she said while discussing her advice to people navigating these intense highs and lows of life.
Speaking about the visual aspects of Love & Hyperbole, this artist explained how every aspect was thought out. The album cover shows two different versions of Cara holding on to each other, stopping the other from falling. Cara explained that this represents the duality of two different sides (love and hyperbole) and how crucial it is to trust yourself throughout these emotions. “I think trust in love and in life is actually trusting yourself in a way,” she said about the cover’s depiction of this. She also stressed the importance of trusting yourself and that you can get through anything, whether that thing works out or not.
The visual features of this new release don’t just end with the album cover, that’s only the beginning. During the interview, Cara, wearing a red sweater, noted one major aspect of the album – the importance of red. “I have always been this way, I’ve always related colours and shapes and sort of just like whole universes to every song [and] every project,” she said, explaining further that she has synaesthesia and sees colours when she hears sounds. Red is usually used in imagery for Valentine’s Day (the date that the album was released) and for love in general. Specifically, the specific wine colour that Cara chose felt sophisticated, and rich, and had a contrast of warm versus cool within it. This artist finds value in the visual details of her work, including the live aspects, even hiding Easter eggs and metaphors for her fans to uncover.
“The album feels [like] a rich, more sophisticated version of myself that has like warm and cool in it as well.”
As Cara has used her creativity to craft her fourth album, she still found herself reflecting on what she did with her past releases and learnt from those experiences. While each of her hit records sound unique, they all strike a chord with people, something that she said is important for her as she connects with fans. She also recently performed some pop-up performances in various cities and enjoyed getting to be in a room with a bunch of people loving what she does. It felt like she was going back to her roots and her days of performing at little bars and talent shows at school.
Cara started off her career with a quick rise to stardom, but she didn’t stop there. She still finds herself motivated to continue releasing music, while appreciating her older music along the way. “No matter how much success you have or how early on, [it’s important] to continue to have goals and to continue to work towards something even if it’s not necessarily concrete,” Cara shared. She discussed how crucial personal growth is and maintaining healthy goals, even if they’re more personal instead of tangible or material. These goals may be different from what others expect of the artist, but she is proud of her work, and her fans are always there to appreciate it.
“Having expectations can kind of sabotage your creative process a little bit.”
Cara has long-term fans who have supported her for the past decade, but newer fans are also discovering her music. While the DNA of her past albums and who she was at those times is still there, she feels like she has changed so much. She wants her original fans to know that she’s grown a lot and wants them to hear her evolution sonically, lyrically, and personally while listening to her whole discography. For her new fans, Cara wants them to listen to her old albums and catch up. Referring to her fans as a family, she’s excited to grow this nurturing family to anyone relating to or finding comfort in her songs.
As you catch up on her discography and become a part of the family of fans, you can see Alessia Cara on tour beginning in April 2025 and can listen to Love & Hyperbole on all music streaming platforms.
