Camila Cabello
Daniela GozlanCamila Cabello's performance for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert -- timed with Hispanic Heritage Month -- premiered Friday (Oct. 15) and included a performance of the new song "La Buena Vida."
The singer started her set with her salsa-inspired 2018 smash hit "Havana," with Cabello's sultry vocals perfectly matching her live band's performance. The "Señorita" singer went on to introduce her band before warning fans that her voice might sound a bit nasally because she was battling a "tiny" sinus infection.
"I didn't want to not do 'Tiny Desk' because I'm a huge 'Tiny Desk' fan and I didn't know if they were going to call me back again, so, here I am," Cabello explained. "And hopefully, next time, we'll do it at the 'Tiny Desk' actual, at the NPR office, without the tiny sinus infection, but for now, this is where it's at."
The singer jumped into "Real Friends," "Señorita" and "Don't Go Yet" before closing with the debut of "La Buena Vida," which enlisted the help of the Mariachi Garibaldi de Jaime Cuéllar. "La Buena Vida" is from her upcoming album titled Familia, due sometime this year. Cabello's performance of the mariachi-infused song closes out the "Tiny Desk" Hispanic Heritage Month celebration.
Watch the performance below.
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
