Ed Sheeran has revealed that his new album of collaborations was inspired by a desire to recreate Lady Marmalade with Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber.
His record No. 6 Collaborations Project will feature tracks with the likes of Bieber, Mars and Chance The Rapper.
In an interview with Charlamagne Tha God on his YouTube channel, he said: “This project actually started with one idea I had. It was such a silly idea, I had an idea of doing (Lady Marmalade), I was like, ‘You could get Bruno, Bieber and me on a record, how fun would that be?’
“The first person I rung was Bruno and he was like, ‘Let’s just do a song together, just us’.
“And that is how it happened, and then I did a song with Bruno and then with Bieber and these individual songs started happening and it turned into a project.”
He added: “Before I was signed I made lots of EPs and I made an eight-track EP called No. 5 Collaborations Project with a load of UK rappers that I was a big fan of at the time, and ever since then I haven’t done any collaboration on my own stuff.
“I’ve collaborated on lots of other people’s things but on my own records it’s kind of just been me and I’ve gone through life being, ‘I wish I could work with them, I wish I could work with them’, and it was when I did the Beyonce and Andrea Bocelli (collaboration) and I had them both on the Perfect single I started a thing on my laptop just saying No. 6 Collaborations.
“I was on tour all of last year and just throughout the year any time I met anyone that I had been a fan of, I owned an album, it was the first time I had been able to be like, ‘Let’s get in the studio’. But not so much just to make a song, but more for me.
“With this record I just kind of want to put it out and move on from it. I don’t see it as the next stage of my career, just something that I’ve made that I want to put out.”
Sheeran will release No. 6 Collaborations Project on July 12.