Camila Cabello first won everyone over as a member of Fifth Harmony and now that she’s gone solo, the 20-year-old is giving the world a peek at a whole new side of her. The “Havana” singer’s new YouTube documentary, Made in Miami, is a beautiful look at not only her journey, but everything her family did to help her become a star.
In it, we meet Camila’s tight-knit family, learn how she started singing, and how her hit “Havana” happened on total accident. If you’re too busy to watch it — even though you totally should because you’ll appreciate her even more — we are breaking down the most important things we learned.
- On her singing career: “I remember growing up, I was singing, but there was no real possibility in my mind of this being a career choice.”
- On leaving Cuba: “For me it was about her, the only thing I repeated to myself was ‘she cannot stay here’,” Camila’s mom says. “It was kind of scary, so what I told her was that we wanted to go Disney World.”
- On her father finally arriving to the US: Camila’s dad, Alejandro Cabello, swam the infamous Rio Grande to enter the United States after repeated attempts to get a visa. “I had this Disney calendar that I would always mark the Xs until the day my dad was going to come.”
- On how she started singing: “I was always obsessed with artists and music. I don’t know why I never sang in front of my family. I was always supershy. I love music so much, but it definitely takes a lot for me to break out of my shell.”
- On how YouTube changed her: “I started making these videos with my face covered because I didn’t want anybody in school to find out . . . I posted at least 20 videos and I deleted all of them except for one . . . Posting those covers on YouTube definitely gave me just a little bit more confidence.”
- On her 15th birthday: “When I turned 15, I told my family I would really liked to be taken to the North Carolina X Factor auditions.”
- On starting to go by Camila: “Everybody called me Karla in my school, and from that moment I was like, ‘No, I want to be called Camila’ because it was a new beginning for me. In interviews and everything, I got the chance to start over.”
- On being a part of Fifth Harmony: “When I was in the group, I experienced different things and grew a lot, but then it felt like I had new things to talk about. I think for me, as an artist, the only way to feel good is to make stuff that you love. But I got to this place where I couldn’t express how I was feeling because I didn’t understand my emotions.”
- On working in the studio by herself: “This whole time, I’d been writing by myself, and I was so nervous to get into the studio, because I’d never written in the room with producers before. I had acid reflux, and I didn’t sleep at all. I thought, ‘Am I actually good or is it just my mom and my family that thinks I’m good.'”
- On her hit “Havana”: “Frank just played this beat, and I started doing melodies over it, and he was like, ‘Oh my God, what the heck, we literally have a whole song.’ There was just a vibe. I think something clicked for us.”
- On changing the name of her album: “In the beginning, my album was going to be called, The Hurting, The Healing, The Loving, and I changed it because I feel like I healed at the halfway point. And after that, I felt like, ‘No, this album is about me, and how I felt and how I love people,’ and I’ve decided to ask way less people for opinions.”
- On her family being her support system: “In my family, I have so much love around me all the time, which is, I think, the biggest reason why I haven’t lost my footing. Something that’s just present in our family is this kind of blind courage. Every day, there is something that makes me nervous that I just push myself to do.”
- On Miami being home: “Every time I come here, I feel more in touch with everything that my family had to go through for me. It’s just that sense of being humbled by where you come from, and also the food is awesome.”
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