In the Spotlight: Alex Porat

Ever since Alex Porat was a kid growing up in Vancouver, she did everything she could to make it as a pop star. She spent her childhood going to auditions for kids’ talent shows, and her Saturdays singing Whitney Houston and Christina Aguilera hits in the food court of the local mall, where there was a small stage and microphone set up for impromptu karaoke. In high school, she started posting cover songs on YouTube as a way to build an audience. “When you’re young, you don’t really know how to get your voice heard,” says Porat. “YouTube was a way for people to hear my voice.”

It wasn’t until she was in university, though, that Porat got her big break. In a Glamour magazine video, Shawn Mendes watched Porat’s emotional YouTube cover of his “In My Blood.” “Alexandra,” Mendes says in the video, “you are incredible, your voice is awesome, and you sang it perfectly.”

“That moment for me was this realization that being a musician is actually attainable,” Porat says. “Suddenly it felt like if I kept doing music, maybe things could keep growing.” At the time, Porat had just finished her second year of university, and was already considering not returning in the fall. That video gave her the final push to pursue music full-time.

Since then, she’s been working non-stop. In 2020, she released her debut EP, bad at breakups, which she recorded during the pandemic. A collection of catchy, alt-pop songs about heartbreak, loneliness, or seeing your exes move on over social media, it’s like the sonic precursor to Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour. Her most recent single, “Dimension,” is a spacey, synth-driven pop song fit for the club. Porat’s also ready to hit the stage later in 2021: “The first song of my EP dropped the weekend before everything shut down in Canada,” says Porat. “To finally be able to sing my songs live is seriously a dream.”