Industry Weekly

[On The Rise]

Alessia Cara brings soulful sounds to the Foundry

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Alessia Cara.
Photo: Meredith Truax

Twenty-year-old singer/songwriter Alessia Cara has been in Vegas a lot lately: Before she took her rightful place among other hitmakers at the iHeartRadio festival, she opened for Coldplay at T-Mobile Arena. Now, the voice behind pop-R&B gems “Here” and “Wild Things” and current single “Scars to Your Beautiful” returns to the Strip to play the warm, intimate SLS concert hall the Foundry.

“I just did Radio City, too, and that was the biggest crowd I’ve ever played. It was incredible,” Cara says from a tour stop in Detroit. “But I like to do more intimate shows just as much as the big ones. The fans get equally excited at both.”

Cara has made many fast fans since her debut album, Know-It-All, came out last fall. It’s easy to connect with her velvety voice and a smooth, confident delivery suggestive of a performer twice her age. “It’s been pleasantly surprising to see how people interpret the music and receive it,” she says. “I just didn’t expect people to take my opinions and views and feelings and connect as much as they have.”

Cara’s style feels simultaneously fresh and familiar, and those subtle throwback tones could be coming from a highly influential artist she adores—Amy Winehouse. “She really shaped my inspiration of who I want to be as an artist,” Cara says. “She didn’t have crazy-amazing lyrics or technical strategy, she was just so raw and clever and herself. I just want to sing from the heart and make lyrics that mean something. That’s all that matters, and she did that so well.” Alessia Cara at the Foundry at SLS, October 15.

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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of managing editor at Las Vegas Weekly ...

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