The Kid LAROI started working with Justin Bieber after the superstar slid into his DMs.
The 17-year-old rapper – who has collaborated on ‘Unstable’ and ‘Stay’ with Bieber, 27 – admitted he has no idea how Justin first heard of him but was thrilled with the star reached out to him via Instagram.
He told NME: “I actually never asked him how he found my s***. He just DM’d me one day on Instagram and was just like, ‘You got the sauce’, and I responded back and was like, ‘Yo, what’s up? I’m a big fan’. He liked my message and that was it from there.
“Two months later he DM’d me again and was like, ‘Hey, what’s your number? I think I have the right song for us. Let me send it to you.’ He sent [‘Unstable’] to me and I was like, ‘This s***’s crazy’, went [and] wrote the verse, sent it back, and that was that.”
LAROI – whose real name is Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard – revealed that ‘Stay’ was not planned but he knew it was perfect for Justin.
He said: “I’ve had ‘Stay for about a year now. I was over at my friend Blake’s [Slatkin] house. It was me, Blake, my boy Omer [Fedi] and Charlie Puth. We were all just hanging out, and Charlie went over to the keyboard and just started playing stuff…and what he played was the ‘Stay’ [melody], and I was like, ‘What’s that?’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, no, I’m just f****** around.’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no. Pull up a Pro Tools session, record this s***, this s***’s fire.’ It was probably the most organic way of making a song I’ve ever done – ever.
“One day I was just listening to it and was like, f***, Justin would sound perfect on this.
“So I actually pulled up to the studio that he works at, and I just came with the f****** file. I was like, ‘You ready?’ and he was like, ‘Yup’. And he just did it. He just went into the booth and just freestyled the s*** off top; it was the craziest s***. I was like, ‘Yo, this guy’s out of his mind.’
“He’d be like, ‘Yo, do you like this? Is this good?’ And I’d be like, ‘Just keep going. Keep f****** going. Just shut up and keep f****** going’.”