GROWING PAINS
Alessia Cara won’t let a setback in romance slow her down
IN January, Alessia Cara joined an exclusive club of women, including Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys and Adele, who have won the prestigious Best New Artist Grammy. But the now-22-year-old singersongwriter didn’t get to party the night away after her big victory.
“I was so sick that weekend that I was in the hospital the day before the Grammys,” says Cara, who also performed at the ceremony. “So [afterward] I went straight back to my hotel and just got into bed ’cause I was feeling so sick. So I didn’t even get a chance to celebrate, which sucks. My team had a party for me and I wasn’t even there, couldn’t even go.”
But if Cara’s excellent second album, “The Pains of Growing,” out Friday, is any indication, there will be more awards and more celebrations to come. The new LP — which finds the Canadian artist producing herself for the first time on several tracks — proves that her big Grammy win was no fluke.
Cara (real name: Alessia Caracciolo) picked up that gold-plated gramophone on the strength of her 2015 debut album, “Know-It-All,” which included the hit single “Scars to Your Beautiful,” now her signature song. The tune’s empowering message to embrace your imperfections has turned Cara into a role model for young women.
“Putting out ‘Scars to Your Beautiful’ has really changed so much for me,” she says. “I think that song has become, in a way, who I am as an artist and how people look at me as an artist. It just put me in a position with this new responsibility to continue being that artist who talks about those issues. I mean, it’s a beautiful box to be put into if I do have to be put into one. I’m gonna try to keep embracing it and hope that people can be positively influenced.”
Still, Cara says, there’s definitely some pressure that comes with being a role model. But, she says, “whereas that can seem like a lot, a lot of time, I think at the end of the day it’s a really good thing . . . hoping that people know that I’m gonna make mistakes, of course, and that I’m still learning and growing. But I think my fans know that I’m not perfect, and that’s why they’re my fans.”
On “The Pains of Growing,” Cara continues to share insights that will touch young women, in particular, on tracks such as the single “Trust My Lonely.” Although the tune may sound like a breakup song, she insists it’s not.
“I know it sounds that way,” she says, “but I actually was writing that song about my insecurities and wrote about them as if they were a person.”
But “Not Today” and other tracks were indeed inspired by a setback in love. For now, she says she’s happily single.
“Oh, my God, no, I’m not even thinking about [dating] right now. That’s the last thing on my mind,” she says. “Right now is just a period where I wanna think more about myself, because I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to do that [with] my career. Giving so much of myself to a bunch of different people, I’ve never had that time for me, so I think I’m gonna take advantage now.”
Growing up, Cara — who “technically” lives with her parents in Toronto — says her musical heroes were female artists such as Amy Winehouse, Lauryn Hill and Pink. “I’ve always gravitated towards strong women in the music industry that were . . . unapologetically themselves.”
And now Cara is part of a wave of Canadian artists — including Drake, The Weeknd and Shawn Mendes — who are killing the music game in the US and beyond. So what’s their secret up north? “Man,” she says, with a laugh, “if I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”