Lady Gaga has revealed how she managed to get Ariana Grande to record their forthcoming duet ‘Rain On Me’.
The track, which comes out tomorrow (May 22), is the second single to be released from Gaga’s new album ‘Chromatica’ which is due out on May 29. Earlier this month, the pair previewed artwork for the collaboration.
Gaga previously brought out comeback single ‘Stupid Love’, in February.
Speaking about her collaboration to Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Gaga said: “I think maybe she assumed that it’d be that she came in and I was like, ‘Here, just sing this and thank you so much for your time’. But instead I asked her what she needed, how she wanted to do things.
“And then I remember I said to her, ‘Okay, now everything that you care about while you sing, I want you to forget it and just sing. And by the way, while you’re doing that, I’m going to dance in front of you’, because we had this huge big window. I was like, ‘I’m going to dance in front of you’. And she was like, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God, I can’t, I can’t. I don’t know. Oh my God. Okay, okay’. And then I did it and she sang, and she started to do things with her voice that was different. And it was the joy of two artists going, ‘I see you. And I see all the things that we all…’ Humans do this.
“We create things that make us feel comfortable. We put them all around. I do it all the time. We all do things to make ourselves feel safe and I always challenge artists when I work with them. I go, ‘Make it unsafe, make it super fucking unsafe and then do it again’. And it was just awesome to watch her.”
Gaga also hailed Billie Eilish but admitted that she was a “little hurt” by her astronomical success in the last year.
“I love Billie Eilish. I love all these younger artists. I’m there for you. I love you. I am not in competition with anyone. I want everyone to win. I’m support. I remember there was one… I forget what award show. Billie’s won so many awards and there was one night where she just swept a whole bunch of awards. And I said, ‘Send her some flowers’. I wrote her a note and for me it’s healing, because I go, ‘You know what? That hurt me that I didn’t get that, but that’s okay because I’m going to be that for someone else’. And me being that for anyone is also a gift for me.”