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Taylor Swift and Post Malone Were in the ‘Tortured Poets Department’ Together Way Before ‘Fortnight’

Taylor Swift and Post Malone will team up on 'Fortnight,' the first single from 'The Tortured Poets Department' that has been years in the making.

But as Swift started chipping away at her re-recording process, Malone became a probable contender when fans speculated about potential bonus track collaborators for Reputation (Taylor’s Version), given the hip-hop influences present on the original release. In the aftermath of Beerbongs & Bentleys and Hollywood’s Bleeding, Malone made a conscious effort to recenter himself creatively with Twelve Carat Toothache(2022), his fourth studio album, which opens with the fame-confronting song, “Reputation.” Flipping the traditional pop format and placing a chorus where an opening verse should be, he sang: “I got a reputation that I can’t deny / You’re the superstar, entertain us.” The songs on that album, Malone told Billboard in 2022, “speak more to how I’m feeling at the moment: the ups and downs and the disarray and the bipolar aspect of being an artist in the mainstream. There was the line “My reputation’s never been worse, so you must like me for me” on “Delicate” and a barrage of references on “End Game.” But Swift’s most striking round in the ring — where she wrestled with the bizarre relationship between artistry and celebrity — arrived not through a song but through a poem.

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