Camila Cabello’s Producers Tell Us 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Her Album

1. 
   
   “Havana” totally changed the tone of the album
   
   
   
   
   
   Before there was “Havana,” “Never Be the Same,” or any other official taste of Camila, the singer kicked off her newly minted solo career in May 2017 with “Crying in the Club” and the brooding “I Have Questions.” Both tracks signaled an emotionally heavy project ahead, yet they were ultimately dumped — as was the album’s melodramatic original title: The Hurting. The Healing. The Loving.
   
   
   “The album began off more serious — dealing with relationship stuff, dealing with plenty of heartbreak, dealing with plenty of life things, with the Fifth Harmony thing,” Bell explained. “It began off darker, yet then towards the end, it lightened up because of where she was in her life. She felt more liberated.”
   
   
   piece of what helped Cabello “lighten up” was the success of “Havana.” Immediately following the song was released in August, it speedily became a fan preference, and the warm reception gave Cabello the confidence she required to loosen up in the studio. “It put her in a higher end mood in general, and I think that helped give the album a fantastic contrast, so it didn’t move also far in one direction,” Bell said.
   
   
   
   
   



2. 
   
   “Havana” is Camila’s song, and Camila’s song only
   
   
   
   
   
   segment of what made “Havana” such a game-changer is that it was wholly unique to Cabello. “It goes back to Camila. It’s a song that if she doesn’t do it, you can’t just give it away,” Lee mentioned. “For example, with some songs, if they’re written for Rihanna, and she doesn’t take it, then it goes down to some other artist and then another artist. Nevertheless this was a song that if [Cabello] didn’t take it, there was no one else who could do it.”
   
   
   Bell agreed, adding, “That’s routinely a fantastic mode of attack, in case you find a way of, ‘How can we make a song that no one else could cut?’ Especially any time it’s your first big, big song as a solo artist. Once you heard it, it didn’t sound like anything else on the radio. That’s what gave it its mark, so that instantly, once you hear that first piano hit, you know [what it is] right away.”
   
   
   
   
   






3. 
   
   “Havana” was a puzzle that had to be “perfect”
   
   
   
   
   
   “Havana” as we know and love it today is a massive hit, however the song was a pain to nail down. Before Bell and Lee were asked to help on it, Cabello and executive producer Frank Dukes had been sitting on a number of rough versions of it for months. Those versions had different pre-choruses, a different second verse, and even a Spanish verse that was recorded before Young Thug jumped on it.
   
   
   “It changed a million times, so no one knew which version was going to come out,” Lee explained. “But what was habitually set in stone was the hook — the ‘Havana na na na’ part.”
   
   
   In the end, Cabello went through all of the different versions and picked the bits and pieces she admired the perfect, essentially Frankensteining the resultant smash hit. As a result, there really are a whopping 10 songwriters credited to “Havana” — including Cabello, Lee, and Bell — nevertheless all of the months of work were entirely worth it. “It was a song that was so special to her that it had to be perfect,” Lee said.
   
   
   
   
   



4. 
   
   “Real Friends,” on the other hand, was a breeze
   
   
   
   
   
   While recording her album, Cabello was bouncing back and forth between Los Angeles and Miami, which took a toll on her social networks, Bell explained. That made a song like “Real Friends” resonate deeply with her and make it “one of the simplistic sessions ever.”
   
   
   “‘Real Friends’ is something that I think she connected to perhaps the most out of everything," he mentioned. Certainly going via the complete Fifth Harmony situation, dealing with the people who you go, ‘All right, are these my real companions? Do these people care about me?’ It’s something that publicly had played out prior, and this song was her way of being able to mention, ‘I have a song about that concept that I can connect [to] on a super deep level.’”
   
   
   Whenever it came time to actually making the song, Cabello nailed the vocals in just one or two takes, and was even freestyling parts of the song in the recording booth. The production was kept purposely minimal because, as Bell explained, “That song being so stripped down, it’s sort of reflective of saying, ‘Real companions, we don’t need to dress all this up. ... This is who I am and I want to be around people who are going to show me who they are.’”
   
   
   
   
   



5. 
   
   “Inside Out” got some valuable input from her mom
   
   
   
   
   
   “Havana” isn’t the only Camila song with a distinct Latin flavor — “Inside Out” also finds Cabello effortlessly swerving between English language and Spanish.
   
   
   “On songs like that, she’s talking about growing up in South Miami, and as soon as you get into that Cuban world and why she grew up, I think it just comes out naturally,” Bell mentioned about Cabello’s Spanish lyrics. “That’s just who she is.”
   
   
   As for the particular lyrics, Cabello consulted her mother, Sinuhe, for input. Bell mentioned, “She would converse with her mother about lyrics because her mother speaks the language of course very well, so she would ask, ‘Mom, how does this sound? Is this a fantastic way of saying that?’”
   
   
   
   
   



6. 
   
   “Into It” showed off Camila’s playful side
   
   
   
   
   
   If ever there’s a Camila song to prove that the album’s original darker tone was completely scrapped, it’s the final track: the fun, flirty “Into It.” Co-written by Ryan Tedder and Justin Tranter, it finds Cabello brazenly suggesting that she and her crush begin some trouble and get “into it.”
   
   
   “Camila, she’s so ahead of her time and she has a lot of deep things she wants to mention and emotional things she wants to mention, although at the same time, she wants to touch on the fun stuff,” Bell mentioned. “[“Into It”] was a chance for her to be playful and flirty and show that side of her and not feel like there’s any limitations of how her album could sound. We didn’t have anything else that sounded like that.”
   
   
   
   
   



7. 
   
   “She Loves Control” would be a summertime single
   
   
   
   
   
   now, “Never Be the Same” is slowly nevertheless surely inching up the charts, and right after that, Bell has a solid pick for what the next Camila single ought to be. “I hope [“She Loves Control”] will be a summertime single,” he mentioned. “I think, timing-wise, the way ‘Never Be the Same’ is going right now, and leading into the summer, that could be an ideal single to come up next.”
   
   
   Bossy and brassy, “She Loves Control” is an anthem about being confident and commanding, and it’s impossible to disregard the importance of Cabello’s fans — several of whom are young females — singing along to a song with that sort of empowering message. “That’s something she thinks about all of the time,” Bell mentioned. “She goes, ‘I know what I'd like to mention nevertheless I also know how my fans will take it.’ Of course female empowerment is one of the most key elements and has of course been a very hot topic within the past year, so it’s something that is just of course going to connect.”
   
   
   
   
   



8. 
   
   Camila loves control in the studio
   
   
   
   
   
   Turns out, “She Loves Control” is actually a brilliant way to describe Cabello’s demeanor in the studio. “She isn't an easy person to please — which is beneficial, because she really cares,” Lee mentioned. “She was really caring about her album so much, and really anal about it.”
   
   
   Her attention to detail affected every song on the album and every choice she made. As Bell described, “She’s one of the biggest artists I’ve ever worked with melodically, in knowing what she wants. Concept-wise, she’s years ahead of her time. She won’t let anything go out up until she is aware it’s exactly the way she wants it.”
   
   
   
   
   






9. 
   
   She would be a future Grammy nominee
   
   
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   In January, Cabello appeared at the 2018 Grammys, joining Kesha onstage to perform “Praying” and introducing U2 with a moving speech about what it means to be an immigrant In the
   U.S.. Cabello’s album wasn’t Grammy-eligible this year, nevertheless come 2019, Bell and Lee are both predicting we’ll visualize her back on that hallowed stage as a first-time nominee.
   
   
   “I think a lot of times, any time as soon as you look at the Grammys, they look at, ‘OK, this artist, what does she do? Is she just singing a song someone gives her, or is she writing the song? How much is she putting into the song?’ I think anyone who is aware anything internally about the music industry, hopefully understands at this point that Camila’s the real deal and she really writes her stuff, she really sings her stuff, and she’s a real talent,” Bell mentioned. “I think a Grammy should certainly be in the future.”
   
   
   Lee agreed, adding, “She has something to mention, and she’s not just a pop star. She’s a mogul, she’s an icon. I think she deserves to be nominated.”
   
   
   
   
   



10. 
    
    Camila can do “whatever she wants” for album No. 2
    
    
    
    
    
    We’re only a number of weeks removed from Camila’s release, nevertheless both Lee and Bell are already looking ahead to Cabello’s next project. Bell mentioned he imagines Cabello will work on album No. 2 throughout her upcoming spring tour, saying they’ll send ideas back and forth from April up until June, any time they’ll finally have the ability to get into the studio with each other. He wants to give the second album a “more mature progression,” yet ultimately, the new songs will depend on Cabello.
    
    
    “It’s all about what’s going on in her life, relationship-wise, everything. All of that stuff is going to factor into the full theme of the album,” Bell said.
    
    
    Lee, meanwhile, thinks she may go any direction imaginable. “She understands all these indie bands; she might do an indie record,” he mentioned. “Her depth of what she understands musically is bigger than mine. She may do whichever she wants.”