A new duet between English singer Calum Scott and the late Whitney Houston — a balladic reinterpretation of her 1987 hit "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" — will be released Thursday, 13 years after Houston's death. The single uses Houston's original vocal stems and was approved by Houston's estate and music-rights owners.
Primary Wave, which acquired copyrights to many of Houston's songs in 2022, proposed the collaboration after hearing Scott's live cover while he opened for Ed Sheeran in 2024. Pat Houston, Whitney Houston's sister-in-law and the executor of her estate, signed off on the idea, saying the slowed, emotional approach honored Houston's work and coincided with the 40th anniversary of the singer's career.
Scott said the project was "one of the honors of my career," telling The Associated Press that Houston's voice soundtracked his childhood and remained a formative influence. The release is not a sampled remix but a new recording built around Houston's isolated vocal tracks — stems produced by her longtime collaborator Narada Michael Walden. Scott recorded his parts in the U.K. with producers Jon "MAGS" Maguire, Andrew Yeates and Charlie T, and the team added a string section to deepen the arrangement.
The decision to recast the upbeat pop original as a somber ballad began with Scott's stripped-down live performances, in which he blended the tune with Robyn's "Dancing On My Own." Scott said he sought to reflect the lyric's underlying yearning: "You want to dance with somebody who loved you ... you're not actually dancing with them," he told The Associated Press. Early demos experimented with a minor-chord chorus that proved too bleak, so the producers restored some of the original's uplift even at a slower tempo.
Creative choices in the studio emphasized deference to Houston's part. Scott's team preserved the first verse as Houston solo, which Scott said was deliberate: "Whitney starts the song because this is her song. I would never dare stand in front of Whitney for that first verse." Engineers left elements of the original analog recordings intact, including the faint sound of a snare drum that appears on Houston's isolated vocal; removing such artifacts would have meant altering the character of the original performance, Scott said. The arrangement also retains the song's signature key change in the final chorus.
Songwriters George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, who composed the original, reviewed and approved the new version. Merrill praised Scott's restraint and his choice to pare the production back to piano and vocals, saying the approach showed respect for Houston's legacy. Rubicam complimented Scott's vocal power and emotional command, saying the two voices were a strong match.
Pat Houston described the release as an opportunity for celebration, noting the timing with Houston's four-decade influence in popular music. The duet will appear on Scott's forthcoming album, Avenoir, which is scheduled for release Oct. 10. Scott said including the track made it "as much part of my story as any other song on the album."
The single follows a series of estate-approved projects that have used archival material to create new releases. Representatives for Scott and Primary Wave did not immediately provide further comment beyond statements distributed through media outlets covering the release.
The duet's release marks the latest instance in which original vocal stems have been used to create posthumous collaborations, a practice that involves close oversight from rights holders and estates to ensure those projects align with artists' legacies. In this case, Houston's estate, original songwriters and the rights-holder collaborated with Scott and his producers to craft a recording that preserves Houston's lead vocal while recontextualizing the arrangement for a new audience.