Jauregui takes first solo steps, happily
On Lauren Jauregui’s forearm, a crucial date — “6.6.18” — is etched in permanent black ink.
The date marks the first time the 22-year-old singersongwriter performed an entire set as a solo artist, opening for collaborator Halsey on the Latin American leg of her “Hopeless Fountain Kingdom” tour. That’s where she previewed music from a forthcoming solo debut that’s expected to arrive early next year via Sony Music.
“It was where I realized I can do this and that this was exactly what I was meant to do,” she said. “I got to just be me — giving my energy with songs that I’d written and expressing myself with my choreography and what I wanted to wear. By the end of it, I was crying because it was so powerful.”
Jauregui’s hunger for creative freedom and individuality is familiar to any performer who started off in a singing group — just ask any of the guys from One Direction — and it’s magnified for this singer who came to fame as onefifth of multiplatinum girl group Fifth Harmony.
At 16, she entered the short-lived U.S. edition of “The X Factor” as a solo contestant before she was packaged with four other young hopefuls as a group envisioned by Simon Cowell and then-Epic Records Chairman L.A. Reid.
Fifth Harmony finished third in the competition and took off from there. They sold millions of singles, toured the world, made history as the first girl group to score a top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit in nearly a decade, scooped up dozens of awards and even performed at the White House.
Before the group disbanded, Jauregui tested the waters as a solo artist by guesting on tracks from Marian Hill, Steve Aoki and Halsey. Ironically, it was in those collaborations that the singer began feeling comfortable on her own.
But it wasn’t until a session with Khaled Rohaim of production group Twice as Nice late last year where she found her voice, writing what became the first song for her forthcoming project — a soulful number called “Inside” that’s a stark departure from the slinky dance-pop and R&B she did with her former group.
The music Jauregui has been recording is deeply self-explorative, influenced by her Cuban background and diverse musical tastes.
“It has been such an incredibly freeing process,” she says of the new music she’s recorded. “I’ve really let myself be guided by not having any inhibition about what I was gonna say or how it was gonna come out. And it’s really therapeutic, if nothing else, to be able to dive into my mind.”
She is aware of what awaits her when she releases her music. She knows there will be endless judgments from critics and strangers on the internet, particularly on how the music performs in relation to her band. But Jauregui makes one thing clear: She competes with no one but herself.
“Whether I like it or not, the world’s going to compare me not only to every other female and male artist that exists, but obviously to my counterparts because of the group that I was in. We love to judge people and do polls about their existence, their art and whether it flopped or didn’t,” she said.