Justin Timberlake is back on stage, and Don Toliver put him there.
Timberlake joined Toliver as a surprise guest during the NITROUS leg of the OCTANE World Tour, a moment made all the more fitting given that Toliver's single "Body" is built around a sample of Timberlake's 2002 hit "Rock Your Body."
The connection between the two songs runs deeper than a flip. Toliver has spoken openly about how much Justified, the album that originally housed "Rock Your Body," means to him. "I got a lot of fond memories of that," he said to Billboard earlier this year. "Justin Timberlake is always one of my favorites. Justified, that album is literally in my top 10 favorite albums of all time."
The decision to sample it, he said, came from pure instinct. "I didn't think that deep into it," Toliver explained. "Hold on, this is literally one of my favorite songs of all-time. 'Rock Your Body' is one of those songs that triggers an endorphin in my body. To put those two together was so iconic for me."
"Rock Your Body," produced by the Neptunes, is one of the signature singles from Justified.
Timberlake also shared a video of himself watching the show from the crowd before being brought on stage.
The NITROUS leg, the second phase of Toliver's OCTANE tour, kicked off August 4 in Sacramento after the first run of 31 dates sold out and pushed the tour to add 19 more cities. The leg wraps up Sept. 6 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn before the tour heads to Europe through late November.
