‘Havana’ music video good, drawn out

Cat Harper, 21st Century Journalism Student

In Camila Cabello’s first music video release as a solo artist, she uses a fun and entertaining alter ego to bring character to the video. Cabello released this video after her departure from her previous girl group “Fifth Harmony”. Her single ‘Havana’ published and released on Aug. 3, 2017, is a fun song telling the tale of a distant love story. The song also includes a slight feature from rapper Young Thug.

Cabello’s music video features multiple alter egos of the young singer. The video opens with a scene replicating that of a Telenovela, a popular style of traditionally hispanic television, with the same over-the-top acting and exaggerated emotions. The camera then pans out to show a separate version of Cabello watching the show with a very high interest and investment in the characters. The scene then the shows family members of Cabello’s character encouraging her to go out and enjoy her life more while she’s young rather than just staying in the house.

Cabello’s character takes the advice of her family members and then proceeds to leave the house, and finds herself at a movie theatre. The camera then pans to the featured movie, and shows another version of Cabello on the big screen, with a completely different personality and attitude. This version of herself is portrayed as a more sensual version of the separate characters she has played throughout the video. Her song “Havana” then begins to fade into the video and Cabello appears on a stage and starts to sing along with her song, and as the song and video go on many more dancers begin to appear, and she begins to dance with them as well. The love interest in the video appears and they leave together.

Although the video was fun and showed a lot of personality it had a very long and drawn-out introduction rather than focusing more on the music. Cabello seemed to put more care into the characters and the acting in the beginning rather than the actual song itself. The video also was not as well-structured as it could have been, and seemed to be slightly all over the place rather than having something that made sense.

Cabello’s first music video and song as a solo artist were fun, and made you want to continue watching. It was an interesting concept that was a good way to make a break out into the solo artist world. I anticipate seeing more content from her as a singer, and think that she has a lot to offer the entertainment industry.