After dropping hints about new music, Calvin Harris finally released a new single today that features the vocals of Frank Ocean and Migos . The new track, titled “Slide,” was produced and mixed by Harris.
Harris released the cover art and line notes on Twitter earlier this week, as USA Today reports. He also released a few small clips of the track and teased the release on Snapchat. The track is now available on Spotify and iTunes.
Notably, in the credits for the single, Harris writes that Ocean appears on the song “courtesy of Frank Ocean.” Ocean is not signed to any label, and released his last album Blonde under his own production company Boys Don’t Cry. “Slide” is the first new music from Ocean since his albums Endless and Blonde , which were released last year. Ocean’s vocals appear on track singing lines such as “Do you slide on all your nights like this?/ Do you try on all your nights like this?”
Harris’ last piece of music was the single “My Way,” released in September 2016. As Rolling Stone noted, it was the first song which featured Harris’ vocals since 2014’s “Summer.”
Quavo and Offset, members of the hip hop group Migos, are also credited with writing the song. Offset appears on the track rapping lines such as, “Swallow the bottle while I sit back and smoke gelato/ Walk in my mansion 20 thousand paintin’ Picasso.”
Migos formed in Georgia in 2009 and is made up of the rappers Quavo, Takeoff and Offset. The group recently found themselves caught up in a fight with rapper Sean Kingston while in Las Vegas. A gunshot was fired outside the Sands Expo & Convention Center during the fight, Pitchfork reported, leading to a man’s arrest. No one was injured in the altercation however.
The group released their second album, Culture , in January 2017, which included the successful single “Bad & Boujee.” Migos told Rolling Stone they were surprised to see the song reach wide success . “We did it the trap way, not the pop way.”
Owing to the song’s success, Migos performed “Bad & Boujee” on Ellen , where they also participated in a PSA with the likes of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ice Cube that encourages kids to read, and posed with host Ellen DeGeneres for an Instagram photo.
Ocean has become known for doing things his own way in the music industry, including releasing his album without a major label. As Rolling Stone reported, he also opted not to submit Blonde for Grammy consideration and fired back at Grammy officials who claimed he made the decision due to his poor performance at the 2013 awards ceremony. In a Tumblr post, Ocean admitted his performance was poor, but denied that having anything to do with his decision not to submit Blonde for awards consideration.
“You think that’s why I kept my work out of the Grammy process this year? Don’t you think I would’ve wanted to play the show to ‘redeem’ myself if I felt that way?”
Ocean went on to criticize the Grammys for awarding Taylor Swift’s 1989 with Album of the Year over Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly . He also explained why he didn’t want to participate in the Grammy’s Prince tribute, as he felt the best way to honor the late artist “would be to continue to be myself out here and to be successful.”
Controversy aside, the song “Slide” represents a new collaboration for all of the artists. According to Harris, it and all of his releases for 2017 are “sonically designed to make you feel f***ing incredible.”
[Featured Image by Eric Jamison/AP Images]