It should come as no surprise that Justin Bieber, who spent the first part of this year shedding the artifice of his old persona in favor of swaggier pastures, is tapped in with the music New York “Sexy Drill” pioneer Cash Cobain. The two linked up on Bieber’s latest album, Swag, which he surprise-released earlier this month. On the album’s title track, Cobain’s signature triplet cadence sits along Bieber’s silky, vintage R&B-infused vocals like a match made in heaven.
Like with all things Bieber as of late, it all starts on Instagram, where he first caught the attention of Cash Cobain after posting his song “Trippin on a Yacht” to his page. “Everybody would just send me that shit, so I just followed bro and I wrote, ‘Now we got to work. We got to get something in,’” Cobain says via Zoom a few days after Swag’s release. “He was like, ‘All right, bet. Definitely got to do it, I fuck with your shit.’”
While it’s not uncommon for artists, especially producers, to get these kinds of “let’s do something” DMs from artists, Bieber, in fact, followed through. After the two exchanged numbers, they chatted about music back and forth until, one day, Bieber was in New York and reached out to Cobain to work. ”I pulled up on him. He’s at his crib with a couple of people there. We had like, a laptop, speakers, and instruments in this circle,” Cobain recalls. “We was just vibing and shit. A couple of musicians and a couple of other people was there.”
What was it like in the studio with Bieber? “That nigga’s a movie,” Cobain says. “He was just doing ideas. I never got to really see him really locked in, like, on some Justin Bieber shit. I’m pretty sure that shit will be fire, though.”
After jamming for about half an hour, they made a sketch of a track before Bieber had to head out to attend a basketball game. Cobain thought nothing of the session, though the two kept in touch, chit-chatting about music and regular life stuff. “It was really on music and stuff like that, I’d be sending him beats and shit,” Cobain explains. “Like, he’s swaggy. He’s been on the swag shit for a little minute. But we was talking regular shit, too. We cool. He’d check on me like, ‘I’m just checking on you.’”
Then, the same week that Bieber announced the album, he sent Cobain a reference track of the song they’d worked on. “He’s like, we’re going to try to get it on the album, and I’m like, ‘All right, bet,’ so I fixed it up and then the next day or the day after the next day, that shit was out.”
For Cash Cobain, who grew up listening to Bieber (“Man, who hasn’t been listening to Justin Bieber? Come on, it’s Bieber,” he says), the moment felt surreal. “That boy into it, you know? He on top of his game,” he says. “He knows what’s good. He knows what’s going on.”
The collaboration is just the beginning for Cash Cobain, who has a new album titled Party With Slizzy set to drop sometime later this year. He says he’s looking to tap in with other major pop acts, namely Sabrina Carpenter and Doja Cat. “I’m just a party, man. I’m a good time, man, so I’m welcoming people to the party,” he says.
Speaking of a party, last year we tried to go to Slizzy Fest, and it got shut down. Inquiring minds are wondering, now that he’s got the Bieber co-sign, will he try again this year? “I don’t know, man. It won’t be the same. I had some shit that was going to pop out,” he says. “I never got over that, so I don’t know.”
Either way, he says fans can expect some live shows in the fall when he’s set to go on tour.