Ariana Grande rejected a hip-hop reworking of ‘Wicked’ hit ‘Popular’

nme.com:

Ariana Grande shot down the idea of reworking the Wicked song ‘Popular’ into a hip-hop number.The idea was floated by composer Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the music for the original Broadway show.

However, Grande rejected the idea because it felt too close to what she does in music.Schwartz recalled the exchange in an oral history of the film for the Los Angeles Times. “In the spirit of being open to new things for the movie, my music team and I thought, let’s refresh the rhythm.

Let’s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit. Ariana said, ‘Absolutely not, don’t do it. I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda’.”She did agree, however, to another change he suggested. “I had this idea for a new vocal ending.

Ariana was a little hesitant about it, but I told her that if I had thought of it for the original show, this is how it would have been.