She's been talked up as the next Lorde and Canadian teen sensation Alessia Cara is sailing the waves of her new fame.
The 19-year-old was in Auckland this week to promote her soulful first single Here, which describes feeling like an outsider at a party. It's been a hit on YouTube and Spotify, with a recent performance with The Roots on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon adding to her momentum.
It's a song that has resonated with introverts - but Cara is bubbly and talkative, despite experiencing moments of shyness at times.
"I was always doing music on my own, in my house, because I was really shy," she says. "I would never sing in front of other people."
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Advertise with NZME."The reason why I [joined YouTube] was to ease myself into the idea of singing in front of people without having to be actually be in front of them."
Her version of Taylor Swift's Bad Blood is one of her most celebrated covers. It was even noticed by Swift, who tweeted the young singer-songwriter three minutes after the video was uploaded to YouTube.
On Thursday night she performed a short but dynamic showcase in Auckland, hanging around afterwards to take photos with fans.
As a young artist who speaks her mind, Cara has been compared to our own Ella Yelich-O'Connor. Here shares certain similarities to the themes of Lorde's debut Royals - both songs speak of an authentic experience that resonates strongly with young people.
There's also a particular lyric from Lorde's Still Sane that could well apply to Cara at this point in her career - "I still like hotels but I think that'll change, still like hotels and my new found fame" - and Cara agrees.
"Every time I listen to that song now, I'm like, 'that makes sense'," she says. "I'm still in that phase where everything is brand new and I do still enjoy hotels and I am still sane for now, because it hasn't hit me yet."
She's also been compared to another young Canadian who was discovered on YouTube: Justin Bieber. However, she seems less impressed by that comparison.
Besides Lorde, Cara cites other young stars like Raury, Chance the Rapper and Kelani as changing the business for the better.
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Advertise with NZME."It's going to be very much like a domino effect and all these young artists are going to come out of nowhere," she says. "I think it's great, because young people are smart!"
However, she's still aware of the dangers of the industry. The late Amy Winehouse was one of her biggest inspirations and she describes her death as a "cautionary tale".
Cara has one tattoo, a little yacht on her wrist. It's there to remind her that "a sailboat no matter how small can still float on any heavy water".
