Cabello’s Miami is a neon-flecked fever dream that she affectionately nicknames “Caribbean Tokyo.” Directed and shot by Rahul Bhatt, the album’s video trailer follows the metallic-bikini-clad pop star as she cruises the MacArthur Causeway in a muscle car and stalks the beach with friends in matching pink balaclavas. It’s Harmony Korine’s 2012 cult classic Spring Breakers à la Sofia Coppola—a consummate work of Miami sleaze.
“She likes to drive with the windows down / So she can hear what the city’s saying at night,” Cabello intones over hypnagogic whirrs of synth. “She likes its broken English / Its all-over-the-place music taste / She likes seeing the neon colors of the Caribbean / And the backdrop of Teslas and skyscrapers in the first world.”
The lowbrow romance of growing up in Miami is all over C, XOXO. Cabello teased her album by taking over a skate park as well as the South Miami 7-Eleven that my friends and I loitered at after-school in the 2000s. She’s glamorized feminine mundanities particular to the city, like freshly airbrushed baby tees sold at the city’s Youth Fair or bottle blonde locks blunted by the city’s organic blend of heat, humidity, and sea spray. In contrast to the harried, crime-fueled Miami that people know from Hollywood blockbusters like the Bad Boys and Fast & Furious franchises, Cabello lets listeners unwind to ambient party-girl chatter in the interlude “305 ‘Till I Die.”
Yet on C, XOXO, Cabello’s paean to Miami falls short on representing its unique hip-hop legacy. There is a glaring omission of Miami bass, the regional sound, accented by brisk 808 beats, that cemented the city as a hip-hop destination. The only emcees from the 305 to make the cut are J.T. and Yung Miami, the artists formerly known as City Girls. Still, they make a rousing pep squad in “Dade County Dreaming,” a dusky anthem for club-hoppers stumbling down Collins Avenue, clutching their stilettos and sniffing out the next good party. Like a typical late night out at the beach, the chaos unravels into a deeply intoxicated outro, in which Cabello slurs, “Orange skies, I’m never leavin’” over a telenovela-grade piano outro.