Songfacts®:

• "Rather Be" is a track from The Kid Laroi's second album, Before I Forget, which documents the fallout from his July 2025 breakup with Tate McRae. While he aches for their physical closeness, his deeper longing is for the friendship they shared, the soul-deep connection that made her his "bestie."
• The hook - "Rather be with you" – captures the difficulty of moving on from their deep connection. This fixation places the song squarely in the lineage of Laroi's greatest emotional hits, sitting somewhere between the raw abandonment of "Without You," the push-pull desperation of "Love Again," and the reluctant letting-go heard later on "A Cold Play."
• The track includes a verse from Lithe (Josiah Ramel), an independent Melbourne-based artist whose contribution adds a second voice to the mourning process. His lines, centered on the idea that life will never feel the same, expand the song from a personal confession into a shared emotional disaster zone. Lithe's appearance also marks a step up into higher-profile territory following the success of his 2024 breakout "Fall Back," which won Most Performed Hip Hop/Rap Work at the 2025 APRA Music Awards.
• Laroi and Lithe wrote "Rather Be" alongside Khaled Rohaim, Antonio Zito, Finatik, Zac, AuzTheKid, and Omid Khasrawy, with production handled by Rohaim, Dopamine, FNZ, and AuzTheKid, the latter being Laroi's younger brother, Austin Howard. Austin's role focused on drum programming, though his influence runs deeper than just beats. Laroi told iHeartRadio how much he values having his brother in the studio, calling it "really awesome" to share the process. Laroi praised his brother's artistic judgment implicitly, stating: "I send him everything I make... He'll always tell me. He'll be completely honest. If he loves a song, I really really trust it."
• Laroi told iHeartRadio the breakup felt like a "death," going from best friends to strangers almost overnight, and that emotional chaos heavily influenced his songwriting on Before I Forget. Tracks like "A Cold Play" (released as the lead single in September 2025) act as a direct commentary on the split. "Rather Be" fits within this narrative arc, representing the phase where Laroi accepts the relationship is over but struggles with emotional residue and unresolved attachment.