She’s back, she’s blonde, and she’s got a brand new single. Gearing up to drop her highly anticipated, yet to be titled, fourth studio album, Camila Cabello checked in with Audacy’s Bru to chat all about it.

Just three months into the year, Camila is confident that 2024 will, “go down as one of the best years of my life.” And with the way things are looking we can’t disagree.

A huge part in making that prediction become a reality, is the last year and a half Camila has spent in the studio, “making the album with El Ginjo and Jasper and Bart, my engineer.”

“It's just been really, really fun, I've had the best time of my life,” Camila continued. “We had the best time making it, and now for it to start going out into the world and get some energy back from people is so cool.”

Starting off her album rollout with the Playboi Carti assisted single “I LUV IT,”  Camila explained why she felt that track was the right choice to introduce this new era,

“I think the energy of this whole project is very being bold and taking risks and kind of like being unpredictable and, you know, kind of just like pushing, I don't know, pushing my own boundaries and uncharted territory,” she began. “And I feel like this song is, it's like the perfect first thing because I don't feel like people expected, I don't know for me to do that. There was some confusion, there was some hatred even, but I think it's like people were like, ‘Whoa, what is this?’ And that's exactly the reaction that we wanted.”

The hyperpop, furiously catchy tune, definitely sees Camila entering not only this bad girl behavior blonde babe era, but also a whole new musical vibe, and we gotta say — we love luv it.

Discussing how the song is so different than anything she’s done before, both sonically and lyrically, Camila said, “A lot of my songs before, because… songwriting is so important to me and I love songwriters. You know, I've talked a lot about Taylor or Lana or whatever.” She continued, “and just like even having a hook where it's just three words repeating over and over and over again. It’s new for me and embracing that repetition and also just being influenced by a lot of Rap and Hip-Hop, just, I think made me kind of paint with different brushes.”

“So, yeah, I feel like sonically lyrically, like with the music and then also just like, visually, you know, changing," she added, pointing out the obvious to Bru. “I don't think I was blonde the last time I saw you.”

Admitting she went back and forth about if bleaching her hair was a “terrible mistake,” Camila is now very much on board with the decision. “I’m really like, oh no, I love this s***,” she said, “and I also feel like it's perfect for this chapter and for the music. I feel like I needed to like, shake it up a little bit.”

Detailing how the track came to life, Camila shared a studio sesh story of how the songs repetitive chorus came together. “We were in Miami, and we were listening to a lot of Playboy Carti actually… We were kind of starting to dream up the track list and we were like, what would be the first song on the album?”

She continued, “Jasper kind of played those four chords and I loved them… I was super inspired and I got in the booth and I started kind of trying some stuff, and the first thing was literally ‘supersonic, in your orbit…’ And I kind of did the verse and I saw the guys going crazy from outside the booth and I was looking at them and I was like, yeah, I love it, and then they were like, holy s*** that sounds so good. Because I guess the tune maybe put the note to the note without knowing it. It was like a happy accident.”

Speaking of accidents, the single’s music video is filled them. Curious, Bru asked Camila if the underlying theme was self-sabotage.

And while noting it was an interesting thought, Cabello did illuminate that her vision for the visual was “more kind of like this complex feeling of loving the pain of something or loving the messiness of something or loving the chaos of something, like, really kind of finding the beauty in that part of our humanity.”

Also discussing some of the adrenaline boosting moments in the music video, Camila clarified that while she wasn’t drinking gasoline, but actually watered down apple juice. That wrestler really did have her in a real headlock, which she didn’t terribly mind, and she was really chased by dogs, and had to bear hug a palm tree, which she found to be scary, but an adventure.

During her hiatus Camila occupied her time with “consuming art,” sharing, “I feel like it just makes me, makes you a better person even if you're not an artist. So I love seeing the latest sick films or classic films or reading amazing novels or listening to classic albums or whatever. I feel like that just makes your taste better and just makes you kind of, I don't know. I love that even for my growth as a person, but I think that does end up feeding into the music anyway.”

And while music is always on the brain, Camila explained, “there’s definitely times where I'm like, I just want to go… be in nature or… watch an old Disney channel original movie with my friends… drink wine and have pizza and not do anything for artistic growth or creative growth or personal growth.”

Having cleared out her feed for this latest era, Camila and Bru also went on to talk about the though process behind her social media activity.

“A lot of times I post and then I'll delete or I'll be like, I don't know, I get a little messy sometimes on my social media but I don't know. I guess the vision for me is like, it's actually pretty easy because it's just the world of the album,” she revealed, going on to tease, “I wish I could say the album titled but I can’t. Sorry.” Annoying, but we get it.

That being said, keeping things secret hasn’t stopped Cabello’s fans from putting on their detective hats, and sleuthing form some hidden clues. However according to Camila, while she loves “that they do that,” “they got a ways to go before they do that.”

Guess we’ll just have to wait patiently as more things get revealed.

Camila and Bru continued conversing, talking about things they’ve done once that they’d never do again, Camila shouted out Miami’s Pine Crest Bakery, and shared her excitement for her fans to hear more music from the album.

To hear the entire conversation, press play on the interview above.

Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Bru