Teen sensation Alessia Cara on quest to show she's real

Alessia Cara is quickly emerging as a breakout teen star but the singer is determined not only to avoid the pitfalls of celebrity, but to serve as a champion for those who feel out of place.

The 19-year-old won unexpected fame from her bedroom in suburban Toronto starting five years ago as she posted cover songs on YouTube, turning her rich soul voice on hits from artists including Lorde, Amy Winehouse and Taylor Swift, who recently invited her to perform at a concert.

The covers, accompanied by tongue-in-cheek but strikingly accurate impressions of famous singers, led to a record deal with Def Jam, a prominent label best known for hip-hop, and Cara has spent the last two years writing an album.

Despite her fan base among teens, Cara picked the mature-sounding "Here" as the first single off "Know-It-All," her debut album released on Friday.

On "Here," set to an Isaac Hayes soul sample also used in the 1995 song "Glory Box" by English trip-hoppers Portishead, Cara sings with poise of her dread at a party "under clouds of marijuana" and loud but dull music.

"Excuse me if I seem a little unimpressed with this / An anti-social pessimist, but usually I don't mess with this," sings Cara, in a voice that brings memories of Winehouse.

Cara insisted on "Here" as the first single, even though "everybody said it's not really safe enough for radio."

"I said I didn't care," she told AFP after an album release party held, appropriately, at YouTube's studio in New York.

"It showed a side of my personality and it was a good introduction to me as an artist," she said.

"I didn't want to be placed in an automatic category of 'teen pop star'... the usual stupid comparisons. I wanted to steer away from that and show people that I'm real."

- 'Terrified' of fame -

The song built slowly into a viral hit after its release in April, fueled by its popularity online.

"Here" has been streamed more than 65 million times on Spotify and viewed more than 21 million times on YouTube.

Cara credited the song's success to fans who quietly nodded to the message of social isolation at parties, a theme comparatively rare for mainstream teenage pop.
"They feel like I've given them a voice or a platform to say -- 'We feel the same way. We're not feeling it either,'" she said.

Cara -- fast-talking and quick-witted when discussing her music despite her young age -- has kept up her flow of covers, recently uploading a version of fellow young Canadian singer Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself."

While not mentioning Bieber or other tabloid-headlining stars by name, Cara said she was determined not to wade too far into the minefields of celebrity life.

"I'm not interested in the whole fame side of things and I'm not interested in the spotlight," she said.

"I know a lot of artists say that, but I do mean it. I'm terrified of it.

"I think you've just got to keep the right people around you and hope for the best, and just hope you don't wind up like some other people who have unfortunately fallen to their demise a little bit," she said with a laugh.

Yet Cara cites as a model a musician who had a notoriously troubled and brief life -- Winehouse.

Cara said that Winehouse offered an emotional poignancy with her tales of heartbreak, which the Canadian teenager had not felt directly.

"That's when I realized the power of music. I could feel something I've never gone through before."