Camila Cabello was Zane Lowe’s latest guest on Apple’s New Music Daily; she was in the studio to discuss her new songs, her boyfriend Shawn Mendes and an embarrassing track she wrote for Rihanna.
“[I] would write when I was like 16 to instrumentals of other songs,” she said of her songwriting start. “Those are for real shit songs…I actually remember the chorus that I wrote [for the instrumental of] ‘You Da One’ by Rihanna. I think the reason they were so bad is because there was like nothing going on in my life romantically.”
But Cabello still had high hopes for her early compositions: “The worst part is the title [of one song I wrote]…it was literally saved on my Garage Band as #’2Proud.’ It’s like, ‘This is Rihanna’s next single.’ At 16. ‘I’m going to send this to Rihanna right now.’”
The singer also confirmed that her song “Liar” is about Mendes, as is “First Man,” which she called “the proudest song I’ve ever written in my life.”
Cabello dove further into lessons she’s learned from their relationship: “He’ll say to me sometimes, ‘Oh, I had to talk to this person because it made my heart hurt.’ He feels this need to kind of lift the weight of whatever is hurting him in order for him to be free. And I think that that’s really beautiful. That’s a trait that I’ve adopted, is like whenever I feel like there’s a weird energy between me and somebody or if my heart is hurting for some reason, I’m like, ‘OK, what do I need to do?’”
Cabello released her second album, Romance, on December 6th. The album features previously released singles, “Señorita,” featuring Shawn Mendes, “Shameless,” “Liar,” “Cry for Me,” “Easy” and “Living Proof.” Romance follows Cabello’s 2018 solo debut, Camila.