Camila Turns “I LUV IT” Into a Full-Body Pop Explosion
Today’s Performance Choice of the Day belongs to pop princess Camila Cabello, bringing the hot-town mix to “I LUV IT” with a hyper-animated, sugar-rush performance pulled from her Apple Music Live 2024 concert.
The performance traces back to Rock in Rio Lisboa on June 23, 2024, where Cabello hit the World Stage in Lisbon just days before the release of her fourth studio album, C,XOXO. Apple later turned that festival set into a full Apple Music Live concert film and live album, giving the era one of its best preserved onstage snapshots.
And “I LUV IT” is the right place to start. The song sits at the very front of C,XOXO and opens the official Apple Music Live release, immediately dropping the listener into the album’s deliberately chaotic, playful new world.
PERFORMANCE CHOICE
Stay inside Camila’s C,XOXO universe.
Revisit the album, the Apple Music Live era and the maximalist pop rush that made “I LUV IT” such a left turn.
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The C,XOXO Era Was Built to Look a Little Unhinged
Released on June 28, 2024 through Geffen/Interscope, C,XOXO marked one of Cabello’s sharpest stylistic pivots. The 14-track record leaned into chopped-up textures, Miami references, glitchy pop production and a version of Cabello that seemed far less interested in behaving like the tidy radio-pop star people already knew.
“I LUV IT,” featuring Playboi Carti on the studio version, became the album’s opening statement. Apple Music itself described the song as the thesis statement for C,XOXO: playful, in control, messy on purpose and built around a character who knows exactly how much she is getting away with.
What works in this performance is that she does not try to tidy the song up for the stage. The whole point is the overload: the repeated hook, the clipped production, the attitude and that restless energy that makes “I LUV IT” feel like it is moving in three directions at once.
Apple Music Live Caught the Era Before It Had Time to Settle
There is also something especially fun about when this performance happened. Cabello played Rock in Rio Lisboa on June 23; C,XOXO officially arrived five days later. Much of the album was still brand-new territory for the crowd, and Apple’s cameras caught that awkwardly exciting moment before songs become tour staples and everybody knows exactly where the screams are supposed to land.
The resulting Apple Music Live: Camila Cabello concert runs about 46 minutes and pulls together C,XOXO cuts with earlier hits including “Havana,” “Shameless,” “Liar,” “Señorita” and “Never Be the Same.” Apple Music released the live project in September 2024, with “I LUV IT” opening the sequence.
For today’s choice, though, we are staying right there at the top of the set — where the whole thing kicks off loud, twitchy and wonderfully over-caffeinated.
Dig into more of the C,XOXO Apple Music Live moment below.
And this is exactly why we keep a Performance Choice slot around here: sometimes a song makes complete sense only once somebody gets out from behind the studio mix and throws the thing at an audience.
Watch Camila Cabello Perform “I LUV IT” on Apple Music Live 2024
Apple Music’s official video captures “I LUV IT” from Cabello’s June 23, 2024 Rock in Rio Lisboa performance, later released as part of her Apple Music Live concert.
Sources: Apple Music; Apple TV; Camila Cabello; Rock in Rio Lisboa.
