Selena Gomez Is ‘an Old Soul With a Beautiful Baby Face,’ Says ‘It Ain’t Me’ Songwriter

When Selena Gomez sings about drinking whiskey on the top floor of the Bowery overlooking New York City, it’s very well she draws on personal experience, but it’s Ali Tampori’s memory. The 27-year-old songwriter, recently signed to Resevoir Media, wrote the lyrics to Kygo and Gomez’ recent single “It Ain’t Me” alongside her partners Brian Lee and Andrew Watt, the same team that helped Justin Bieber and DJ Snake with their collaborative hit “Let Me Love Love.”

“I feel the most proud of this song,” Tamposi says of “It Ain’t Me.” “If every song was that easy, I think I would be in less shock, but I’m in shock because it came together so perfectly. I can’t imagine it being different in any way.”

Neither Tamposi, Lee, or Watt is new to the songwriting game. Tamposi got her first big hit and Grammy nomination for her work on Kelly Clarkson‘s “Stronger,” but their current trio is a fresh new combination that works. “Let Me Love You” peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100 chart, and they’d just wrapped a few months in London with Rita Ora on her new project when they got the call Kygo was interested in meeting.

“We had such a great time, and we had written some incredible stuff in London, so we were kind of on a high,” Tamposi says. “We go to the studio, and we started writing a song that I think we can all agree on was pretty garbage honestly, but we were trying to salvage it. Kygo came into the room with his manager Myles Shear and they were polite, but they were like ‘yeah, this is cool, keep chipping away at it.’ When they left the room, I looked at Brian and Andrew, and I was like ‘this is not how we do this thing, come on guys. Someone grab a guitar, and let’s Fleetowod Mac it.’”

The studio turned into a serious jam session. Brian and Andrew grabbed guitars, they all started singing melodies, and 45 minutes later, the “It Ain’t Me” demo was written and recorded. It was a simple straightforward cut, just acoustic guitar and Tamposi on vocals, but it had that magical essence Kygo was looking for. They just had to get him back into the room for another shot. Tamposi felt…