Victoria Monét explains how she got Usher on “SOS”

Victoria Monét thought Usher up when working on their song “SOS.” As she reveals in Rolling Stone‘s The Breakdown, she’d been listening to Confessions and “studying that album top to bottom” when she received a call from Usher.

“I was like, ‘What the f*** is going on?!’ The energy is like … what?” Victoria says. “Because sometimes I feel like … if we really focus on something, we can manifest its existence. And I say it all the time, but that was creepy. I was like, ‘No, no, no — is my phone tapped?’”

Though she and Usher already had plans to work on a song, she played him a bit of “SOS” when he came to the studio and eventually caught him mumbling along to the song. Taking advantage of the moment, Victoria asked him to try something out in the booth.

“He starts trying this melody, which ends up being the second verse, his verse of the song,” Victoria says. “Comes out and we start writing lyrics to it together. It just felt like … serendipitous! It was very serendipitous. It just fell together into our laps on a magical day in the studio.”

It’s not clear what other song Usher and Victoria were scheduled to work on.

“SOS” is one of the 10 bonus tracks featured on the newly released deluxe edition of Jaguar.

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