Shawn Peter Raul Mendes (born August 8, 1998) is a Canadian pop singer-songwriter. He gained a following in 2013, when he posted song covers on the video sharing platform Vine. The following year, he caught the attention of artist manager Andrew Gertler and Island Records A&R Ziggy Chareton, which led to him signing a deal with the record label. Mendes’ self-titled debut EP was released in 2014, followed by his debut studio album Handwritten in 2015.
Shawn Peter Raul Mendes was born in Pickering, Ontario, on August 8, 1998, the son of English mother Karen (née Rayment) and Portuguese father Manuel Mendes. His mother is a real estate agent, while his father is a businessman from the Algarve who sells bar and restaurant supplies in Toronto. He has a younger sister named Aaliyah. He was raised in a religious family, and played youth soccer with Pickering FC. Mendes graduated from Pine Ridge Secondary School in June 2016, where he played ice hockey and soccer, joined his high school glee club, and practised his stage presence in acting lessons (leading as Prince Charming at one point). He also auditioned for Disney Channel in Toronto.
Mendes learned to play guitar by watching YouTube tutorial videos at the age of 14 in 2012. Less than a year later he started posting cover videos on YouTube. Mendes started attracting viewers after he posted a cover from Justin Bieber’s “As Long as You Love Me” on the social video app Vine in 2013 and got 10,000 likes and as many followers the next day. After that he gained millions of views and followers in a few months, becoming well known for his six-second snippets of renditions of many popular songs.Mendes saw Bieber as a career model at the time
