Camila Cabello Honors Black Lives Matter, March For Our Lives at Pre-Grammy Concert

During her Wednesday concert in Los Angeles, singer Camila Cabello paid tribute to Black Lives Matter and the March For Our Lives campaign for gun control.

She performed her song “Something’s Gotta Give” off her debut album, 2018’s “Camila.” While she sang, the big screen behind her showed footage of Black Lives Matter and March For Our Lives protests, signs with messages such as “Refugees Welcome Here” and “Never Again,” gun control activists including Emma Gonzalez and Naomi Wadler, the Women’s March, migrants coming toward the U.S. border, Martin Luther King, Jr., and more.

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In her introduction to the song, the Cuban American artist did not make any political remarks, but said she encouraged people to “choose love over fear.” The track includes lyrics like “something’s gotta change” and “we should know by now,” although it is not overtly political. In previous concerts, Cabello has displayed similar footage, and this time around, the audience cheered as each segment appeared.

The roughly 90-minute-long concert, in partnership with Mastercard, played to a full crowd at the 2,000-seat Orpheum Theatre in downtown LA. Cabello performed roughly 15 tracks, ranging from upbeat hits like “Havana” and “Never Be the Same,” to ballads such as “Consequences” and “Scar Tissue,” the unreleased track that she said she felt “stupid” for not including on the album.

Cabello told the crowd, who lit up the venue with flickering roses and belted out the songs with her throughout the show, that she is currently writing her second album.

“I do have a lot of tea for you guys. But obviously, you’ll see that the tea I’m referring to is this Sunday and on the next album,” said Cabello.

She is set to perform the opening of the Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 10, along with J Balvin, Young Thug, Ricky Martin, and more. Cabello has nabbed her first two Grammy nominations, for pop solo performance (“Havana”) and pop vocal album (“Camila”).

Prior to the show, the artist held an intimate Q&A with Mastercard’s CMO and members of the press. Cabello said music is how she builds bridges with others, starting when she first moved to the U.S. from Cuba when she was 6 years old and didn’t speak any English.

“‘The Cheetah Girls’ movie had just come out and I had this ‘Cheetah Girl’ CD and I would plug this boombox in and play it outside and I remember meeting my first best friend in the United States,” Cabello recounted. “She was, like, ‘Oh my god, I love the Cheetah Girls’ and then we formed a little girl group. That’s always been — especially when I was younger — my way of connecting with people is through music that I loved and music that makes me feel something.”

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