The Weeknd has dropped new song “Smile,” his collaboration with the late rapper Juice WRLD. The song is the first time the artists teamed up.
In the lyric video for the pensive song, which was posted on Juice WRLD’s YouTube page, an artist paints a portrait of Juice WRLD as the rapper drops a verse about wanting to bring joy to someone he loves, even if it means he’s not in that person’s life. “I’d do anything in my power to see you just smile,” he raps.
“I just want to see you smile,” the Weeknd sings on his verse as the artist moves on to paint his portrait. “Don’t Cry/Even though it means I gotta let you go/Dependent on you gotta learn to be alone.”
The Weeknd teased their single earlier in the week. “XO + 999 Thursday night,” he wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of Juice WRLD.
Juice WRLD had hinted at the possibility of the pair working together in a tweet from last September. “Me and the Weeknd would make a diamond record…” he tweeted. The rapper died in December at the age of 21.
Juice WRLDs posthumous album, Legends Never Die, claimed the top spots on Rolling Stone‘s Top 200 Albums and Artists 500 Charts in July. Prior to the Juice WRLD release, the Weeknd’s After Hours made the biggest debut of 2020, bowing at Number One on the Top 200 Albums chart in March.
The Weeknd will be debuting a new augmented-reality “music experience,” which will air exclusively on TikTok on Friday. The show will also raise funds for the Equal Justice Initiative and TikTok will match donations.
