Plenty of collaborations are a single email and a payment. The one between Christian Gates and Dutch Melrose is the real thing, built over years, in person, on stage.
It started with a verse
The partnership began when Gates, stuck for years on TOXIC, played it for Dutch at a party. Dutch wrote the second verse the night before a delayed flight, and Gates has said it “pretty much saved the song.” He counts Dutch among his two or three favorite artists alive, and has marveled that Dutch keeps 30 to 40 versions of every song before he lands the right one, the mark of a real craftsman.
Then it went live
The chemistry moved off the record. In January 2025 the two co-headlined the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles, Gates’ favorite room, and they shot the cinematic TOXIC music video as co-stars, a full short film built around their two characters. Gates has talked about doing even more shows together.
Two after-midnight voices who actually became friends.
Why it works
They share a lane, dark, melodic, confessional, but come at it from different angles: Gates the raspy-voiced pop-punk-adjacent romantic, Dutch the cinematic dark-R&B stylist. That overlap-with-contrast is the recipe for a partnership that lasts, close enough to click, different enough to be interesting.
Two artists, one home
Now both bring VIP tours to The Ring, Gates’ I Believe In Ghosts Tour and Dutch’s Heartbreak Hotel Tour. The partnership that started with one verse now spans two careers, and one platform.