Jencarlos Canela wants people to see themselves “Sin Filtro.”
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Canela, 31, is premiering his new song “Sin Filtro” (without filters in Spanish) and a touching video campaign. The purpose of the clip? To motivate women to see the real beauty within them.
The video features women of all ethnicities, sizes and sexualities opening up to the 31-year-old singer (whose music is under JEN) about their approach to makeup and how they believe others perceive them — but most importantly, how they perceive themselves.
“It was one of the most important moments of my life,” Canela tells PEOPLE about the experience. “I love what I do but for a very long time I was just living off of what I did, but there comes a time where the switch turns on and you want to start building off of what you love.”
“It’s something bigger than me,” he adds. “There’s so many incredible stories out there that need to be told.”
The women featured in the video open up about feeling the need to wear makeup every day to cover up their insecurities. At one point, the Miami-born artist asks them to remove their makeup if they’re comfortable enough to do so. The interviewees then return to continue answering Canela’s questions, sans makeup.
The idea for the campaign came after Canela realized that 87 percent of his audience is female and that he needed to do more for that majority portion of his audience.
“I realized there was not a project in my body of work that I really felt represented and spoke out to women in an honest way,” he says. “I honestly wanted something for my mom to watch and feel proud of her son.”
“This video was made to create an honest conversation and a space where we can really reflect on our inner makeup and what’s creating our realities, which ultimately is our thoughts about ourselves and our core beliefs about ourselves,” he adds. “That was the mission with this one.”
Canela explains that while the new video is targeted to women, he hopes men watch it too.
“I think men are just as important of the gender equality conversation or the beauty standard conversation,” he says. “We all play a part. I really want people to feel something. I want to bring a conversation to the table.”
The artist, who got his start as a telenovela actor on Telemundo, says he’s “in album mode right now.” Along with “Sin Filtro,” Canela recently released song “Relax” alongside Jo Mersa Marley, Bob Marley’s grandson.
“I have so many things that are speaking out to me in such a powerful way,” he explains. “I want to start creating albums that symbolize something. Don’t be surprised if you see ‘Sin Filtro’ on a project.”
The Latin heartthrob also spoke about his “incredible” experience acting in Netflix’s The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia, a show that follows a 15-year-old Latina who has two PhD’s and needs to balance being a teen while working at NASA.
“The music and the acting comes back in one, those are my two passions so I get to have a lot of fun with it,” he says. “And this character is just real. I think we’re all familiar with failure. And this is a guy that fails again and again. I just saw an arc, such a powerful, beautiful arc in this character’s storyline.”
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