Grammy-Award Winning Singer Alessia Cara Joins MTV’s “Fresh Out Live” to Talk About Her Newly Released Singles, Upcoming Album and Working With Amy Winehouse’s Producer

Alessia Cara dropped by MTV’s Fresh Out Live with host Kevan Kenney to talk about her upcoming album that is set to release this year, working with Amy Winehouse’s producer and her new singles “Shapeshifter” and “Sweet Dream.” Cara shares what it was like working with Salaam Remi, who was Winehouse’s record producer, getting the opportunity to record in the same studio as the musical icon and being able to feel her presence. She also confirms that her new album is on track to release later this year and will feature a variety of sounds that she has been experimenting with. Plus, Cara offers a soothing performance of “Sweet Dream.”

On the contrasting lyrics and visuals in the music video for “Sweet Dream”:

“I love doing that. I love juxtaposing lyrics to sonics and lyrics to visuals. I feel like it’s just fun to play around. It’s fun to have something on the surface to be one thing and then digging deeper, having it be another. I just wanted the video to represent a dream-like state or like a delirium, you know, because that’s how I was feeling. When you don’t get enough sleep you’re sort of almost hallucinating. That’s how tired you are, so that’s kind of how I wanted the video to feel like.”

On recording in the same studio as Amy Winehouse:

“That was crazy. It was just one of those full-circle moments for me. Growing up I adored her and I still do and I would always look through her album booklets and see who she worked with and the name Salaam Remi would always, you know, pop up. He did so much of her work, so I’d always, since I was a kid, I’ve wanted to work with Salaam and finally, 2019 I had the chance to go to his home studio and, yeah, it was just crazy. He was showing me around and showing me the rooms where she wrote all these different songs and the backyard where she wrote this song and it felt like just a museum of the wonderful art they made together, so it was so surreal to be there, which was awesome.”

On the feeling of being in Salaam Remi’s recording studio:

“I guess there’s an intimidation there because it’s like “Oh my gosh, now I got to write a song here and I hope I do this room justice” and, you know, Salaam is just such a legend, so there is an intimidation there, but then on the other end it just felt really exciting and really warm like I could feel her energy and it was emotional for me, you know, to just be in that presence, for sure.”

About Fresh Out Live

MTV’s “Fresh Out Live” is a short-form music series that delivers the most important music and pop culture news of the week directly to fans, including artist interviews, in-studio performances, album drops and tour announcements every Friday at 5PM ET/PT on MTV.

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