Shawn Mendes, a world-famous singer, started his career at the very young age of 14 when he began posting himself singing on the now-deleted app, Vine. People on the app loved his voice and how he could make each song sound special. After doing mostly covers, he soon began releasing his music.
Shawn Peter Raul Mendes was born on August 8, 1998, in Toronto, Canada to Karen and Manuel Mendes. He and his younger sister, Aaliyah Mendes, grew up together in Pickering, Canada while they both went to Pine Ridge Secondary School. Mendes grew up playing multiple extracurricular activities, such as: ice hockey, soccer and acting classes. Since Mendes’s career started during his schooling days, he had to leave school to go on tour; though that didn’t stop him from continuing to do his classes online, and he was able to graduate in 2016.
Mendes started posting on Vine just a few months after it had launched. He decided to show off his talent and posted a video of himself singing Justin Bieber’s song, “As Long As You Love Me.” The next day, Mendes discovered that he had gained over 10,000 likes on his video. Through Vine, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, he started to build a huge following and would regularly interact with his fans on said platforms. Mendes doing covers on Vine had gotten him noticed and he would soon be offered a record deal. At 15 years old, Mendes released his first single song, “Life of the Party”.
Mendes’ covers on Vine caught the attention of Andrew Gertler, who is still his manager to this day. Gertler had convinced the young singer and his father to fly to New York and sign a record deal with Island Records. Gertler was very impressed with Mendes’ motivation and drive that he had shown at the beginning of his career. Gertler believed that Mendes was wise beyond his age. “He’s grown immensely in the last year. His musical abilities have grown. His vocal abilities, his guitar playing… I’ve seen him go from the kid who’s playing acoustic guitar to an amazing frontman with a band and, to me, a modern-day version of a rock star”, Gertler stated in September 2017 in an interview with Billboard.
Not only was Mendes naturally talented, but he was a self-taught musician. He used the internet to show off his amazing singing talents, and he also used it to help him learn how to play guitar. “I would type in things like, ‘How to play beginner songs on guitar.’” Mendes stated. Even though Mendes was getting to know his way around a guitar it still wasn’t enough for him. “I was obsessed with it. Every day I’d play and think: ‘I’m not good enough yet; I need to get better.’ Then I’d play for hours and hours,” he stated in an interview with Telegraph.
Mendes released his first-ever album, “The Shawn Mendes EP”, which would reach No. 5 on the music charts and sold over 100,000 alone in 2014. Mendes’s second album “Handwritten”, released in 2015, became No. 1 in both the United States and Canada and is what made him a worldwide star. Also in 2015, Mendes released “Stitches”, which would become the song that officially made him a popstar. The single had even more success than his recently released album, reaching No. 1 on multiple music charts. Mendes would continue to have hit songs such as “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” with Camila Cabello, “Treat You Better” as another single, and “There’s Nothing Holding Me Back” from his album “Illuminate”. On November 15, 2024, Mendes released yet another album, “Shawn”. This album was the first album he had released in four years after Mendes canceled his “Wonder World Tour” in 2022 to focus on his mental health. Mendes has stated that this is his most personal album yet with many of the songs being more personal while his past albums have seemed to only consist of love songs. Even the names of the songs hinted at the more personal feel to the songs such as “Who I Am”, which expresses how he doesn’t know who he is and the struggle to begin to understand himself. “Shawn” seems to be Mendes’ way of coming back into the spotlight after his disappearance in 2022.
Over the years, Mendes has made so much amazing music and has done so much in his short music career and you should go listen to his most recent album “Shawn” which is streaming on every music platform.
