The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber 'Stay' Revisited as a Billboard Hot 100 Number One

The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber's "Stay" is back in the cultural conversation, courtesy of Tom Breihan's ongoing Number Ones column at Stereogum, which is methodically reviewing every Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper in history. The 2021 collab, which debuted at number three before climbing to the top spot and holding it for seven weeks, is a useful case study in how the pop industry actually works.

The song came out of a session at producer Blake Slatkin's house, with an absurd amount of talent in the room. Slatkin, Omer Fedi, Cashmere Cat, and Charlie Puth were all there, and the central melody reportedly came from Puth noodling on keyboard. Laroi heard it, they dropped it into Pro Tools, and the track started taking shape. A few months later, Laroi drove the unfinished song directly to the studio where Bieber was working. Nine total songwriters ended up with credits, which tells you everything about how modern pop hits actually get built.

What 'Stay' Reveals About the Pop Song Machine

The track eventually went 11 times platinum, which is a number worth sitting with. That level of commercial performance did not come from any single genius stroke. It came from a network of producers, writers, and collaborators who each contributed something to a song that is deliberately frictionless and genre-agnostic. At two minutes and 21 seconds, it fits comfortably into a SoundCloud-rap runtime while pulling in adult contemporary radio listeners at the same time.

For independent artists and producers paying attention, that production architecture is the real story. The song works across formats not because it is emotionally devastating or sonically adventurous, but because it is built to slide into any context without resistance. Whether that is a virtue or a limitation depends on what you are trying to make.

Laroi's path to that number one is also worth understanding. He moved from Sydney to California as a teenager, lived in Juice WRLD's house, leveraged a Juice WRLD posthumous collab into his first real US attention, and built from there. TikTok accelerated the whole thing. By the time "Stay" dropped in July 2021, he was 18 years old and already working with the kind of producers who shape the top of the charts.

Bieber's role on the track is real, even if the song technically belongs to Laroi. As Mk.gee put it in a widely circulated quote: "Anything that comes out of his mouth, that's pop music. You can really do pretty wild stuff behind that, just because it represents something." Bieber's instinct to freestyle over the track in the booth and find his own pocket in the cadence is a reminder that platform and ear are not the same thing, but the best artists tend to have both.

As of now, "Stay" remains Bieber's last number one appearance on the Hot 100. His Swag album, released last year and built largely with Mk.gee and Dijon, marked a different kind of creative moment, one that resonated critically even if it did not produce another chart-topper at that level. Whether "Stay" ends up being a peak or a pivot point in that arc is still an open question.

For creators tracking how major pop moments actually get made, this one is a clean example of the process. If you want to dig into the craft side and share your own work, [check out the Pass the Aux section](/pass-the-aux) or [submit your project](/submit) and let the community weigh in.