Muni Long has been a music industry staple long before her 2023 single “Made For Me” became a viral hit and "Hrs & Hrs" made waves.
In a new interview with Complex, the singer and songwriter shared more context about how Rihanna’s 2010 song, “California King Bed” came to be. Long explained to Jordan Rose that she was in Miami at We The Best studio, working on the song with Jermaine Jackson from The Runners.
At the time, she was planning to move to Los Angeles, so she was perusing furniture online. That’s when Jackson popped his head in and asked her how the song was going.
“I didn’t have anything because I had been messing around, and I looked at my computer. I was like, ‘Oh, I got a title.’ I said, ‘California King Bed,’ and he said, ‘OK,’ and then he left. So I was like, ‘Oh, now I gotta write that.’”
Muni continued, “I wrote the song in like 10 minutes. I was like, ‘Turn it up, let me get this done real quick,’ so I could go back to looking for my furniture. Originally, they were trying to pitch it to Kelly Clarkson.”
But that’s not what happened. A couple of months later, her publisher revealed that the song was going to Rihanna.
“I was super excited. She was on tour at the time, but she cut the song, and the rest is history," Long said. "You wouldn't think that she would do something like that. What that did for the trajectory of my career as a creative was massive. After that, I did work with her in the studio many times, but that was my first entry point into my journey with Rih.”
In addition to “California King Bed,” which appeared on Rihanna’s 2010 album Loud, Long wrote on RiRi’s 2011 song “Watch n’ Learn” from the album Talk That Talk. Long also has song credits on Fifth Harmony’s song “Worth It,” Clarkson’s “Love So Soft,” Ariana Grande’s “Imagine,” Selena Gomez and the Scene’s “Who Says,” and Pitbull’s “Timber.”
