International pop and R&B artist Ali Gatie is ready to usher back some better times. (Holy shit. Thank you! Can we PLEASE do that ASAP?)
His new track “Welcome Back," featuring fellow Torontonian Alessia Cara, is a declaration of optimism at a bleak moment in time… but we don’t need to get into all that.
Gatie gained a name for himself singing sad songs, but that’s clearly not his only lane. His single "If I Fall In Love," released earlier this year, suggested that he’s got plenty to smile about. His newest track and first-ever collaboration, "Welcome Back," confirms that. Check out the music video for it above.
“I wrote ‘Welcome Back’ as a two-sided story,” Gatie tells Complex Canada. “There’s the easy-to-understand love story within the song about a returning lover who always has temporary visits. But the darker side is that I wrote it for a different version of myself, a happier one, welcoming ‘him’ back during dark times and dark days.”
Relevant, isn’t it? Who doesn’t feel like their “happier” self has been on a leave of absence for much of 2020?
For a first collab, he could've done a lot worse than Brampton, Ontario's Cara, who nails her part in the video, belting a verse with her already iconic voice from the driver's seat of a new Jeep Gladiator and harmonizing through the chorus. “Feels like you were never gone; I’m glad you’re back/If it doesn’t last, at least we had that time that we had.”
The 23-year-old Gatie, who was born in Yemen and raised in Mississauga, has been on a rocket recently, shooting up in cred and streams. He’s got a world tour and Coachella slot on hold (fingers crossed for April 2021), and recently surpassed 3 billion global streams, nearly 500 million of those coming from his most well-known track, “What If I Told You That I Love You.”
The boy still can’t dance, tho. No judgement.
