Belly, The Weeknd & Young Thug

Belly, born Ahmed Yassin Balogun in Jenin, Palestine, and raised in Ottawa, Canada, has spent the better part of a decade occupying a singular position in hip-hop: the artist's artist, the songwriter's songwriter, the collaborator who elevates everything he touches without always centering his own name. His Palestinian-Canadian roots give his music a particular texture, a sense of geography and displacement that runs through his writing in ways that feel both personal and universal.

His connection to The Weeknd runs deep and long. Belly contributed songwriting and backing vocals to The Weeknd's catalog beginning with the mixtape Echoes of Silence, a creative partnership that produced some of the most emotionally resonant music either artist has made. That collaboration has taken many forms, but it crystallized most completely on "Might Not," the standout single from Belly's 2015 debut mixtape Up for Days, released through Roc Nation. The song, built around The Weeknd's unmistakable falsetto floating over Belly's reflective verses, demonstrated that their artistic chemistry was not incidental but structural.

Up for Days introduced Belly as a full artist in his own right, capable of carrying a project with his own voice and perspective. Another Day in Paradise followed in 2016, pulling in an expansive roster that included Waka Flocka Flame, Lil Wayne, and Travis Scott, and showing the breadth of Belly's relationships and reach within hip-hop. Mumble Rap arrived in 2017, charting in Canada and making an impression on the Billboard 200, followed years later by Mumble Rap 2 in 2023, which Belly announced as the first of three planned projects before retirement.

"Better Believe" represents the full convergence of this cohort. Featuring The Weeknd and Young Thug, the track brings together three distinct stylistic sensibilities: Belly's grounded directness, The Weeknd's atmospheric melodics, and Young Thug's unpredictable, elastic phrasing. The result is a collaboration that feels less like a calculated feature stacking and more like a genuine collision of creative energies. Young Thug, born Jeffery Lamar Williams in Atlanta, has been one of rap's most influential vocal stylists, a figure whose approach to melody and language opened new possibilities for an entire generation of artists.

"Ballerina," another high point in Belly's catalog, works in a more intimate register, showcasing the quieter, more reflective side of an artist who has always been just as comfortable in introspective territory as in larger, more club-facing moments. "Capone's Demise," from Mumble Rap 2, shows Belly at his most narrative-driven, with the detailed storytelling that distinguishes his writing from the broader field.

What makes this creative constellation so compelling is that each of these artists brings something irreplaceable to the table. Belly's songwriting intelligence, The Weeknd's sonic architecture, and Young Thug's liberatory approach to rap delivery collectively represent a corner of hip-hop that has consistently pushed the genre forward. Their shared body of work stands as a reminder of what becomes possible when artists with genuinely complementary gifts find each other and make something worth keeping.