How Camila Cabello's glitchy rebrand lands on electro-pop tune I LUV IT with Playboi Carti

One thing that we've been sorely missing of late is the re-invention of one of our big pop girls, but never fear. Camila Cabello and her brand-new blonde box dye are here to save the day!

The Fifth Harmony alumni's brand-new single I LUV IT, featuring rapper Playboi Carti, is the first track to be taken from her forthcoming fourth solo album due for release later this year, and is a complete 180-turn both artistically and sonically from her previous material. 

A glitchy and reverb-soaked electro-pop tune that has more in common with early-career Grimes and Charli XCX's collaborations with PC Music (Charli's Pop 2 mixtape is, to our ears at least, the main and most obvious influence on I LUV IT) than it does to, say, Havana. I LUV IT is one of the boldest and starkest artistic rebrands of the last few years, and it's all the better for it. 

I LUV IT works so well as a re-introduction to the new Camila simply because it sounds (and looks) so different to what the majority of people expect a Camila Cabello song to sound like.

This was an inevitable consequence of both Havana and Señorita with Shawn Mendes becoming such monster hits. Although, credit where credit's due, Camila's first stab at solo material - like Charli co-write OMG with Quavo -  was much more electronic, but this was seemingly left in Havana's dust because, well, you’re a pop star and you have to give the people what they want!

While we never assumed we'd be talking about the influence of Grimes' Visions on the output of a former girl band member, it says a lot about Camila's intentions (and the creative team she's built around her) that I LUV IT not only lands, but makes you ask the question - isn't this the kind of music they should have been making all along? Which is the desired outcome of any rebrand. 

Feeding into this sense of authenticity around Camila's new project, I LUV IT comes with executive production and a co-write from el Guincho (Pablo Díaz-Reixa) who is one of the main collaborators of one of the most experimental and forward-thinking artists working today, Rosalia. 

Rosalia's third studio album MOTOMAMI was released in 2022 and, much like Pop 2, it sounds like someone's vision for the future of pop music.

But whereas Charli attempted to meld bubblegum hooks with the Y2K, avant-garde electronic production of AG Cook and the late, great SOPHIE, MOTOMAMI saw Rosalia meld the sounds of her homeland - Flamenco, reggaeton and bachata - with equally bright hooks, melded with a production style and flow that more accurately reflected modern hip-hop than it did Latin pop. 

You can see (and hear) the same machinations on I LUV IT, with the song including a suitably mumble-core verse from Playboi Carti, and a sample of Gucci Mane's Lemonade, which runs throughout (and Camila's own Latin heritage is baked into the bones of her new album, with her completing the songs with El Guincho in her native Miami).

We also think its no accident that another credited producer and writer here is Jasper Harris, the twenty-something wunderkind who recently helped Tate McRae transition from Billie Eilish-adjacent bedroom pop to a bold and brash pop princess on hits like greedy and exes.

Streaming has been the great leveller of the digital music age, but one of the side-effects of this has been artists stuck in a box in terms of identity and sound - why change it up when you know something works? But as we come closer to nearly half a decade into the 2020s, this need to evolve, shift and change in pop music seems to be coming back, albeit slowly. 

Within the next few days, we'll see Beyoncé re-write the country genre for a new generation on COWBOY CARTER and here on I LUV IT, Camila throws caution to the wind, attempting to bring a trickier and more avant-garde take on electro-pop (both soaked in the aesthetic of the Y2K and looking towards an enigmatic future) that feels strange, new and ambitious. 

Sometimes, you have to take a great risk to see a greater reward.

I LUV IT by Camila Cabello ft. Playboi Carti is out now via Geffen/Interscope. C, XOXO follows later this summer.