Florida Georgia Line and Nelly have teamed up again, releasing their collaboration “Lil Bit” on Friday. Written by FGL’s Tyler Hubbard, Nelly, Blake Redferrin and Jordan Schmidt, the song is a party-ready blend of country and rap that allows both Florida Georgia Line and Nelly to show off what they’re best at.
“She said ‘Take me to the country, show me where you from’ / I said ‘Shorty you gon’ love me and we gon’ have some fun,” the group sings in the chorus before a banjo kicks in. “I break out my Big Wheel and you can climb on up / Girl, I think you a big deal, now show your boy some love / Just a lil bit.”
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“Excited for the world to hear this song we did with our brother [Nelly],” Hubbard wrote on Instagram after the song was released. “We love ya bro. Y’all turn this one up just a #lilbit.”
“Lil Bit” is the first single from Nelly’s upcoming EP Heartland, which he told Billboard is “a Nelly album, but it’s country-influenced.” Florida Georgia Line and Nelly first collaborated in 2013 on the remix of “Cruise,” which went on to be diamond certified by the RIAA.
“My relationship with them is super tight,” Nelly told Billboard of Hubbard and bandmate Brian Kelley. “We’ve done two tours together, we have a bunch of other tours planned, and things that we want to do… They’re family.” He added that catching up with Hubbard and Kelley and making music was a “no brainer.”
Nelly previously dipped his toe into country music with the 2004 Tim McGraw collaboration “Over and Over,” which went to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“I’m just happy that I can be part of bringing them together,” Nelly said of mixing rap and country music. “You’d be surprised — Florida Georgia Line, all they listen to is hip-hop.”
Florida Georgia Line released an EP earlier this year, 6-Pack, and will follow with their fifth studio album. “We definitely have a theme,” Kelley told the duo’s record label of the upcoming project. “We definitely picked a direction and had a really cool vision. But knowing that going into this project has been different for us in a sense and a blast. Just truly excited about this vision, this project and dreaming of, in the moment while we’re recording, what these are gonna feel like playing live next year or years to come, depending on which ones will be singles and so on.”
Being off the road due to the coronavirus pandemic has provided Kelley and Hubbard with time to work on their album as well as the ability to use a different approach to new music.
“Good to be settled here and knock it out this way,” Kelley said. “We’ve done it differently in the past where we’ve taken maybe eight to ten months-time to record, and knocking it out this quick, it was different. It was fresh and just some really cool energy in the studio, scheming up, tweaking songs and trying to make them better, and I think we achieved that.”
