ISABELLA LOVESTORY IS COMING CLEAN

The perreo-pop auteur has spent years building worlds.
Now she’s burning one down to make room for the next.

Written by: Amanda Breeze
Photography by: Félicie Alessia Diaz

For Isabella Lovestory, every ending seems to arrive with the promise of another beginning. She grew up in the mountains surrounding Tegucigalpa, built a life in Montreal, and is now packing it all up for Los Angeles. Along the way, she’s become one of pop music’s most irreverent voices, turning reggaeton into something louder, stranger, and almost impossible to pin down.

Movement has shaped Isabella’s life for so long that it no longer carries much ceremony. En route to Dracula’s Castle via Bucharest, she admits that places flash past her “like shooting stars” and cities begin to resemble Narnia, existing somewhere between memory and fantasy. She jokes about wishing she could teleport to avoid “low vibrational” spaces like airports, but admits loving long train rides for the rare feeling that nothing really exists for a moment.

It’s a logic that extends into her work. Every project arrives with its own set of rules before making way for another, and her next album, Vanity, is out July 31st. Familiarity, she says, is “what kills creativity.” The pressure to become a product has never interested her much. She’d rather keep changing than become easy to recognize. That philosophy feels especially resonant now. At 32, Isabella speaks about time with a surprising lack of sentimentality. She’s letting go of past collaborators that no longer fit, making peace with the uncertainty of another move, and thinking less about preserving the past than whatever version of herself comes next. “If you want to become someone new, you have to let it all burn and rise like a phoenix.”

Amanda Breeze

Isabella Lovestory

Do you think constantly moving places changes the way you attach meaning to them?

I’m currently on a train from Bucharest to Transylvania to visit Dracula’s castle. [laughs] I think being a free spirit is simply my destiny. My grandpa was a fisherman in Honduras, so I have an addiction to adventure, it’s in my veins. He got lost at sea for a week once. I do think moving constantly changes the way I perceive places, it’s kind of like Narnia. I get glimpses of cities like shooting stars, it's melancholic. Sometimes, I wish I could teleport to places instead of being at low vibrational places like airports, but I really enjoy plane and train rides. I feel like it’s the best place to ignore everyone and meditate. A tube where nothing exists for a moment.

Does familiarity ever feel creatively dangerous?

Familiarity and comfort in art is what kills creativity. I think we should always remain curious. Of course, it’s important to build an inner language first and establish what your world and intentions are as an artist, but don’t ever ever fall into the marketing agenda of becoming a product. It’s what the industry wants you to do so they can make money off you. I think to be fearless is to be free. Taking risks and experimenting is the best thing you can do. Why not do anything you want at any point of your life?

You’re in a moment where your life seems to be expanding in a very real way. Does becoming someone new always require leaving something behind first?

Definitely. I’m moving to L.A. soon, and leaving behind a lot of things. I don’t like looking back. If you want to become someone new you have to let it all burn and rise like a phoenix. Life goes on.