Back in March, Camila Cabello dropped “I Luv It” – and it landed on the Internet like a grenade. As the lead single from her fourth studio album, C, XOXO, it represented a radical left-turn for the former Fifth Harmony member turned slick, chart-topping Latin-pop star: over bellowing synths and rattling electronic beats, Cabello had unleashed the most divisive song of her career, featuring a wild, half-mumbled verse from Playboi Carti and that strangely addictive chorus.
Cabello recorded much of the album there, rather than in her usual base of Los Angeles, and when the city began to work its way into the lyrics and sound organically, she crystallised its influence into something more intentional. “I wanted to challenge myself to make songs that were not about a romantic interest – that were about a place, or about my friends, or about a night out,” she explains.