Checking in with host Mike Adam from the Audacy Sound Space at the Hard Rock Hotel New York, singer Alessia Cara is with us detailing her brand new, fourth studio album, 'Love & Hyperbole,' released February 14, featuring “Fire,” and plenty more.

“I'm very proud, honestly, I'd say this for every album that I released, but I promise it's true every time,” Alessia tells us. “This is my favorite project that I've ever made, and this music is just some of my favorite songs I've ever made, ever. I don't know why. I think it's just because I feel most like myself.”

“I feel like I've grown so much,” Cara adds. “This music is just like a reflection of all the music that I love, and that I've loved growing up. So, it's really exciting. It feels nice.”

Alessia started work on the new release in late 2021, following her third offering, In the Meantime, taking a breather in between albums as she admits. “I think I, just for a moment, needed to take time away from writing and playing music just to come back with a fresh start in a way,” she explains. “But I was creative in other ways, like I learned so many new recipes to cook. I really got my cooking game up a little bit.”

Although, sometimes the pressure can build when others wonder where the songs come from. “I just really compartmentalize,” she tells us, “and when I'm home I just really like to savor it… People just expect you to be this artist who's always writing, and I am always singing around the house and stuff, but I really do like to put it away when I'm home. [I] try not to feel too much pressure, because I like to save that creative energy for when it comes, rather than feeling like, ‘OK, I gotta sit down and do it.’ I'd rather it be an intuitive process rather than an analytical one.”

The release of Alessia’s debut single, “Here,” just reached its 10-year anniversary. Looking back on her older material, “I'm able to look at it with love,” she tells us. “It’s challenging because when something that you make when you're really young takes off really quickly, you feel like there's always the standard that you're held to by the public, or even yourself, to kind of live up to that. But then in my case, I was trying to live up to a version of myself that was young and underdeveloped. It's weird looking backwards because you feel like the natural thing is to grow, and I felt so much better as a person, but people are always trying to get you to go backwards.”

“I do look back on it now with a sense of love and appreciation, and I try not to over-analyze,” she adds. “I was young, and I also didn't really have much creative control yet. I didn't even know what that meant.”

“That whole first album was collaborative,” Cara continues. “I feel like after that, I really just took the reins and decided to just take as much creative control as I can. Not because the first process wasn't fun, I just think that's just who I've always wanted to be as an artist. I've always just wanted to speak my own mind and tell my own stories, and just train myself to do it better. It's also fun. It's like a skill that I love to sharpen. I think it's different just because I'm able to say a bit more, because there's no one else around and I don't have to explain to this other person what the story is about.”

Since breaking onto the scene in 2015, Alessia has managed to maintain a level of privacy throughout her career unlike many others in her field, mainly thanks to not oversharing on social media. “Honestly, for me, I do think it's fairly easy,” she says. “I think that's just because I'm one of the lucky ones where, I don't know, I think people have always just looked to me and have asked me questions about the music, and I've never had any relationships in the public eye, which I think helps. I do think I kind of made it under the radar, and it's not really any work of my own. I think it's just the way that, you know, the wor ...