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Camila Cabello Drops Steamy Video for Debut Solo Singles 'Crying in the Club' & 'I Have Questions'

By Gil Kaufman
5/19/2017
By Gil Kaufman
5/19/2017

The rules are simple: there is no crying in clubbing. That's the straightforward message Camila Cabello sends in the video for her debut solo single, "Crying in the Club," which dropped on Friday morning (May 19). The Jekyll-and-Hyde clip starts off with a taste of the mournful ballad "I Have Questions" before breaking into the slinky, sly late night banger "Crying," showcasing Cabello's signature smoky vocals over a dual track that builds from a string-stroked weeper to a full-on dance track with a tropical beat and empowering lyrics about rising above heartbreak.

The combination makes perfect sense as beatmaster Benny Blanco produced the spare track along with Matt Beckley, Cashmere Cat and Happy Perez and Sia and Blanco are listed as the track's co-writers, along with Cabello, Bibi Bourelly and several others. The biggest surprise? "Crying" samples Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle," the sultry breakout hit from the former Disney star that was released in 1999, when Cabello was just 2 years old.

Artist Mentioned

Camila Cabello

The Emil Nava-directed video opens in black and white with Cabello standing against a brick wall, dancing through the fog and soaking in a tub, a tear streaming down her face as she sings lines about a broken heart over mournful cellos."Why did you leave me here to burn/ I'm way too young to feel this hurt/ I feel doomed in hotel rooms/ Staring straight up at the wall/ Counting wounds, and I am trying to numb them all," she sings. "Do you care/ Do you care/ Why don't you care/ I gave you all of/ My blood, my sweat, my heart and my tears/ Why don't you care?" After all that, she, obviously, has questions.

Then, barely two minutes in, the "Genie" melody rises up and the song transitions into the mid-tempo dance tune "Crying" as Cabello, 20, lets loose in a crowded, sweaty club, singing seductively, "So put your arms around me tonight/ Let the music lift you up like you've never been so high/ Open up your heart to me like you've never been this free." Cue the heat of "a thousand fires" and a sense of abandon that helps her "tears turn to ecstasy." 

"This video is really special for me. It has the first two songs 'I Have Questions' and 'Crying in the Club' off of my upcoming album 'the hurting the healing the loving,'" Cabello wrote in a note accompanying the video. "It was an incredible experience working with director Emil Nava. He understood my initial vision completely and took it to a whole other level with amazing visuals and made it look like what it felt like for me. I hope you love it as much as I do!"

And, just as a reminder, there are no tears in the club. C'mon.

Cabello has been busy since leaving Fifth Harmony, dropping collaborations with Cashmere Cat ("Love Incredible"), Machine Gun Kelly ("Bad Things") and Pitbull and J Balvin ("Hey Ma"). "Crying in the Club" is the first single off her upcoming debut album, The Hurting, The Healing, The Loving. Cabello is performing for the first time on her own on Sunday's (May 21) 2017 Billboard Music Awards.

By Gil Kaufman
5/19/2017