Alessia Cara is 20 years old. She’s 20 years old and she already oozes so much confidence and charisma it’s unfair. It’s unfair to her peers (she’s so real she makes Ariana Grande look like a Madame Tussauds wax figure) and it’s unfair to us grown ass adults who will never be as cool as she is.
If you watched the VMA pre-show last night, you watched Alessia open the show with a stellar performance of her second hit song Wild Things. Alessia Cara from Brampton, Ontario opened the VMAs!
Alessa sometimes gets some flack, especially on Twitter, for looking “like she just rolled out of bed.” To me she looks like she’s daring to be unapologetically herself. I loved her look last night. She looked relaxed in two-tone skinnies, a white tee, military jacket, sneakers and no makeup like she was the coolest girl in class headed to Psych 101. Like Alicia Keys, Alessia is purposefully embracing a more natural barefaced look to make a statement. She is so cool. Alessia was just up there on the VMA stage, singing and strutting around like it ain’t no thing. I’ve followed her career closely and worked with her a few times and I will tell you that Alessia Cara is the exact same down-to-earth girl from Brampton to every single person she meets. That translates into the authenticity we see on stage. And that voice? Can we talk about that voice? It’s flawless.
The only part of Alessia’s performance I didn’t like is that she had to share the stage with Troye Sivan, the first of many artists to make me feel old AF last night. I don’t know his songs. I don’t know why Alessia had to share her moment with him, during her performance and again while she was presenting. I only know that the song they sang together is his and it’s called “Wild” because Google told me so. I also learned that he’s an openly gay singer-songwriter from South Africa who got his start on YouTube. Seems like a nice kid. No disrespect to Troye but I would have loved to see Alessia up there on her own, killing that performance and capping off an incredible year.
VMA pre-show host Charlamagne Tha God mispronounced Alessia Cara’s name during her introduction but corrected himself by the end of the night. After last night, there will still be a lot of people who don’t know Alessia’s name but there sure are a lot more who do.
