New York City's Global Citizen Festival has been amplifying voices and fostering relationships between fans and important organizations within their communities since 2012 by rewarding activists who devote time and energy into fighting poverty around the globe.
The festival is a celebration of activism, and each year artists like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and Rihanna take the stage and inspire through their music and messages. This year was no different.
Singer Alessia Cara used her part of her performance time to share her thoughts on an industry obsessed with fashion and unrealistic body and image expectations by changing an entire verse to another one of her hits, "Here."
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The verse follows: "Three years later still the same / ain't nothing changed this so-called fame / is draining lately I've been shaking / hands and faces I won't remember / won't remember me it's a catastrophe / false reality TV with no screen / and I had to buy my jeans so this industry must not be meant for me."
As Teen Vogue points out, this isn't the first time Cara used her platform and extraordinary vocal skills to talk about the importance of loving and accepting yourself not despite of who you are but because of it.
During an interview with Newsweek, Cara explained that she found the inspiration for her hit song "Scars to Your Beautiful" at the age of 17 after watching a show all about people who'd had plastic surgeries.
"I was just like: 'Why do people do that?' They would rather hurt themselves and go through all of that just so they can be happy with themselves. I was like, 'I want to make a song about this.'"
She later added that there are still days that she'll look in the mirror "and feel so disappointed with what I see," which is something so many people experience daily by living in a society that equates thinness with self-worth.
Though insecurities don't typically vanish overnight, it's awesome that stars such as Cara are using their platforms to remind listeners to be kind to themselves and each other. Hopefully over time the number of people preaching self-love will drown out even our own worst critics.
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