Right There

Album: Yours Truly (2013)
Charted: 84
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Songfacts®:

  • This mid-tempo love song finds Ariana trading verses with G.O.O.D. Music MC Big Sean about their feelings on relationships. Whilst Grande croons more traditionally romantic sentiments Sean bigs up his attraction to females. "My black book of numbers thicker than the dictionary," he boasts. The track was made available as a free download for fans who pre-order Ariana's Yours Truly album.
  • Ariana told MTV News that she considers the song to be, "kind of like the sequel to 'The Way.'"
  • Ariana and Sean have been friends for a while, but she was waiting for the perfect tune to collaborate with the rapper. "We wanted to have writing sessions and, like, jam together but we never found the time and we never found the right song," she said. "We were talking about a few other songs together but it just never worked out and it never was the right moment and then finally 'Right There' came along. And we were like 'Oh this is it'."
  • Producer Harmony Samuels sampled the jazz funk loop from Lil Kim's hip-hop tune "Crush On You." The rapper's 1996 hit single interpolated The Jeff Lorber Fusion's "Rain Dance" from their 1979 album Water Sign.
  • The song's music video was directed by Nev Todorovic and produced by Allysa Pankiw of the Young Astronauts, the same pair that worked on Arina's "Almost Is Never Enough" clip. It is based on Baz Luhrmann's 1996 take on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and focuses on the story's masquerade ball, where Grande's Juliet locks eyes with Romeo. The latter is played by American actor and son of Arnie, Patrick Schwarzenegger (Grown Ups 2), whilst Big Sean portrays "The Priest."

    Todorovic told MTV News that the references to Baz Luhrmann's 1996 re-telling of the play was something that they hadn't originally intended on. "The religious symbolism and the costume party are all from the original Shakespearean play," he explained. "But as we were planning the shoot, and especially on set, we started seeing more of those similarities emerge. Like if you notice, we had an Astronaut in the masquerade ball and everyone is comparing it to Paul Rudd's character, but really it was an homage to our team The Young Astronauts!"

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