In his brand new video “Stay,” a collaboration with Justin Bieber, the Kid LAROI literally freezes time—in true “The Matrix” fashion. In the throes of heartbreak, as he witnesses his girlfriend slowly slip from his grasp, the Kid LAROI can’t imagine a functioning world without her.
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I get drunk, wake up, I’m wasted still / I realize the time that I wasted here, he sings with a snarling rasp. I feel like you can’t feel the way I feel / Oh, I’ll be fucked up if you can’t be right here.
The accompanying visual (out today, July 9), directed by Colin Tilley, alongside cinematographer Elisa Talbot, demonstrates his heartache, finding him wandering through the immovable cityscape. The clip was produced by Jack Winter, with Jamee Ranta and Tilley as executive producers.
I do the same thing I told you that I never would / I told you I’d change, even when I knew I never could, the Kid LAROI later pleads on the chorus. I know that I can’t find nobody else as good as you / I need you to stay, need you to stay.
In an interview with NME, LAROI reveals how the song’s barebones came to be. “I’ve had [the song] 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,” he says. “We were all just hanging out, and Charlie went over to the keyboard and just started playing stuff…and what he played was the [melody], and I was like, ‘What’s that?’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, no, I’m just fucking around.’ And I’m like, ‘No, no, no. Pull up a Pro Tools session, record this shit, this shit’s fire.’
“It was probably the most organic way of making a song I’ve ever done—ever. It reminded me of the first time [I got to] get into a studio and stuff,” he adds. “We didn’t plan for the song to happen. We never planned a studio session or anything like that, so it was crazy.”
“Stay” is the Kid LAROI and Bieber’s second collaboration of 2021, coming on the heels of “Unstable,” found on Bieber’s new record, Justice.
