The party-starting mash-up auteur Girl Talk and the robo-voiced, platinum-plated hook-monster T-Pain both rose to prominence around the same time in the ’00s. As a result, T-Pain’s voice is all over supremely of-their-time Girl Talk albums like Night Ripper and Feed The Animals. Now that he’s no longer releasing mixtapes full of chopped-up pop music, Girl Talk and T-Pain have teamed up for a couple of actual collaborations. The second Girl Talk/T-Pain song is out today, and it also features the South Korean house-pop experimentalist Yaeji.

For many years now, Girl Talk has been working in relatively conventional pop and rap production. In 2022, for instance, he linked up with blog-era rap titans Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T., and Smoke DZA for the collaborative album Full Court Press. In 2019, Girl Talk produced “Getcha Roll On,” a T-Pain single that featured the now-incarcerated Tory Lanez.

Today, Girl Talk releases his new single “Believe In Ya,” a sparkling dance-pop jam built on a sample of Change’s 1981 disco classic “Hold Tight.” It’s got an exuberant, euphoric lead vocal from T-Pain before Yaeji comes in with a playful singsong verse. The contrast between the two vocalists isn’t as stark as you might expect. Here’s what Girl Talk says about the new single:

T-Pain is a living legend and an absolute master of his craft. It was an honor to make music with him again. I was excited about getting T-Pain on some sample-based production. He has such a distinctive vocal style, and I wanted to put it into a complimentary but unique musical environment. I wanted to give him a different sound, something that takes elements from the past but transforms it into a modern style…

Once the T-Pain parts were finished, I thought it would be amazing to have Yaeji on the song. Her vocal style is obviously really different from T-Pain, and I loved how it worked as a contrasting element. Yaeji also provided the synth part that we ended up using as an outro.

Listen to “Believe In Ya” below.

“Believe In Ya” is out now on C&G/Stem.