On Feb. 6, pop singer-songwriter Alessia Cara put on a show at East Emo’s.

Alessia is not your archetypal teenage “it” girl; during interviews, she identifies as introverted and unpopular.

Her self-description coincides with her lyrics. Alessia’s debut hit single “Here” is an honest description of her take on a typical high school party.

She reveals her opinions that the under-the-influence social gathering is pointless and superficial; Alessia would rather be somewhere talking with her friends about music and their life plans.

Alessia serves as a positive role model for teenagers because she promotes values that can’t be found in every young pop star’s music. These include themes of self-love and acceptance, individuality and genuine human connection. She doesn’t sugarcoat her songs by only radiating an optimistic attitude all the time.

To introduce her song “Scars to your beautiful,” Alessia gave her audience an impromptu pep talk.

“There is no ‘perfect.’ There is no one specific type of beauty. I think beautiful is everything. Beautiful is all of us.”

She had to pause because of the roar of applause from the audience.

“Whether you are female or male, just remember that there’s nothing wrong with you, and half the things that you think are awful, nobody even notices. People might even think that those are your best qualities. So remember that beauty is not always everything.

We are not put on this earth to be beautiful; we are put on this earth to say something, to leave something behind when we are gone. When we are gone, what’s gonna be left is not how cool our hair looked. It’s gonna be what difference we made on this earth. Don’t ever think that you need to change if the world doesn’t like the way you look; they need to change, never you.”

Her following is across the map; the crowd at the concert consisted of both elementary-aged girls recording the concert while sitting on their relative’s shoulders and middle-aged men discussing how Amy Winehouse’s influence is evident in the vocalist’s tone.

Regardless of age or background, everyone there appreciated Alessia’s raw vocal talent.