How Justin Bieber Harnessed Cash Cobain’s Swag for His New Album
In some cases, we’ll see a pop star reach out to a rap talent to essentially reheat one of the latter’s notable hits into something more polished, bigger and mainstream. But “Swag” is hardly a “Fisherr” redux; it’s vibey, loose, and not even particularly a “radio” record per se. Even the lyrics are kind of beside the point—it’s more of a 2am forehead-to-forehead on the dancefloor record than it is a 1am banger.
“I wouldn’t say it’s the traditional Cash Cobain sexy drill,” Cash agrees, but can’t quite explain what they came up with either. “I don’t know… definitely more vibey, chill, you know what I’m saying? A different feel.” Cash says Bieber didn’t need any slizzy vibes of his own to catch a wave though, describing the mercurial pop star’s own swag as the genuine article.
“You might think Justin Bieber would be on some other shit, but bro is mad cool. It was just natural, a n-gga was just in a creative space, creative mode, you know what I’m saying?” Cash recalls, saying that Bieber was very loose in communicating a specific vibe that he was shooting for when making the song. “He was just like, ‘Swag. Swag, bro.’ He on some swag shit. That’s [all] him right there.”
Overall the song fits in nicely with the rest of the album, which emphasises feeling over form for the most part, leaning heavily towards Bieber’s R&B inclinations. “That shit hard, especially that first song,” Cash says of the rest of the project. “That first song is like a ‘90s type beat. They went crazy—I’ve never heard nobody really try to emulate that sound.”
Some have been comparing Swag to Journals, previously Bieber’s most anti-pop project and a favorite amongst those who truly know ball. Cash responds with a duh-toned “hell yea,” when asked if he was a big fan of Bieber’s music before this, but says he’ll still rock with the “Sorry”-style Bieber even ahead of something like Journals.
Cash calls this a mere “preview” of the type of music he and Bieber can and hopefully will create in future sessions to come, but also says he hopes this is just the beginning of him dabbling in pop music. “Sabrina Carpenter, Harry Styles—hell yea, I want to get with the pop stars, the stars outside of hip-hop.”
Some might be compelled to peg this as one moment on a longer arc of Cash broadening his sound, but Cash argues you can’t broaden what was already wide-ranging. As he gears up to drop his next album later this fall and expand his palette beyond sexy drill, he asserts that he’s always been experimental. “My sound’s been broadened, but it took the sexy drill wave to capture everybody’s attention. So now it’s just like, I’m doing what I’ve been doing. Because before sexy drill, I was making music for a very long time—the world is seeing the shit now. I’m not just out here experimenting and trying new shit. Nah, I know what I’m doing.”
