
Justin Bieber's Swag collaborator Cash Cobain hails him 'mad cool'
The 27-year-old drill star - whose real name is Cashmere Lavon Small - came to feature on the title track on Bieber's surprise album after he shared his love for his track Trippin on a Yacht on social media and he slid in his DMs to suggest they work together.
He told GQ: 'I wrote bro like, 'We got to get some work in.' So I'm like, all right, boom—took bro's number down and then we was chopping it up for, I don't know, a couple days.'
On the informal Swag sessions at Bieber's home - which he shares with wife Hailey Bieber and their baby boy Jack Blues - he said: 'I pulled up on him and in his crib. He had like, mad other producers, rap people in the room - like, it was people I know and s***, just creating and s*** like that. We was just sitting in a circle, [passing] the mic and just saying s*** on the beat. I was just saying mad dumb s***.'
Praising the Baby hitmaker's attitude, he said: 'You might think Justin Bieber would be on some other s***, but bro is mad cool. It was just natural.... He was just like, 'Swag. Swag, bro.' He on some swag s***. That's [all] him right there.'
The finished song was the result of a day of ad-libbing. Cobain insisted: 'That was just off the first day we met, for real.'
Praising the production, he said: 'That s*** hard, especially that first song.
'That first song is like a '90s type beat. They went crazy—I've never heard nobody really try to emulate that sound.'
Bieber reportedly relished having "full creative freedom" over his new album.
The chart-topping star is no longer under Scooter Braun's management, and he's not "having to stress about creating the perfect single, or perfect album".
A source told Rolling Stone magazine: "Breaking away from Scooter Braun and his team has been something that Justin has wanted for so long, and now that he's fully free, he could finally share this album with his fans and with the world.
"Having full creative freedom, sadly, is something new for him as an artist. Not having to stress about creating the perfect single, or perfect album, allowed for him to create the best body of music he's ever made."

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They're helping me reach my potential as an artist,' Matty tells his dumped friend at the clothing store after a weekend of brutal humiliation inside the pop star's entourage. 'You inspire me to be myself,' he tells Oliver in a tender moment. 'I live in LA. I work in Hollywood,' Russell says. 'I'm constantly hearing hilarious shit like that… there's worse things I've heard since then. I'm always like, 'Oh, that's so funny that someone said that in earnest'.' The manipulation, sycophancy and passive-aggression are deftly scripted. For anyone who's ever been backstage, even scrolled through a gushing emoji exchange on some needy pop star's feed, Oliver's castle in the air feels painfully real. The key to the film's satirical bite, Russell says, was casting actors who truly understood the game. 'I would cast someone based on them saying something that illuminated the material better than I could. They all really understood the microaggressions inherent in the script. 'When we shot that first scene in the store' — Oliver's insecurity peaks when Matty pretends not to know who he is — 'I got emotional, because I knew if that tone worked, the whole tapestry of the movie would fall into place.' For all the aesthetic polish — Lurker was shot on 16mm to evoke a timelessness that transcends the digital moment — the critique is unmistakably modern. 'What's new is the mechanics are different,' Russell says. 'We live in a such an unsubtle time. Everything is quantified and gamified.' Loading It's the game that he is skewering. Oliver is a king without a clue, as much a victim of the celebrity system as any of the hangers-on who live or die on his Insta. It's a world without love or meaning beyond the dopamine hit of your next Like. 'Everyone's operating out of fear. Including Oliver. Everyone is looking for direction.' The writer's own LA story is not irrelevant. He grew up elsewhere, 'moving once or twice a year', never long enough to belong. 'That put me in an observer position a lot of the time. Being the new kid in a different town… I've always had friends who were cooler than me.' Now, as an Emmy-winning player embedded in the showbiz machinery, his daily grind involves the same hierarchies and gamesmanship Lurker satirises. 'People are so malleable… you kind of become more like the people you're around. You gather friends because you want to be more like them.' The moral, if there is one, is buried under layers of cringe and complicity. Russell hopes his film lives in the realm of one of his favourite genres, 'the type of movie that an asshole is inspired by, like Wall Street or American Psycho: 'Yeah, I am that guy! I just want to be successful!'' Loading In an era where practically everyone has reached across the velvet rope to stroke an ego one way or another, Lurker also fits another genre: the film you watch while hiding behind your hands. 'Yes! I love that,' Russell says. 'People feel that secondhand embarrassment, that awkwardness. I think some people may even hate the movie because they're not realising how much they relate to it.'