"The Way" was the first single from Ariana's debut studio album, Yours Truly. At the time she was best known as an actress whose biggest TV role was playing Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious.
The song features some rhymes by Mac Miller, whom Ariana became friendly with after the rapper tweeted her in October 2012. The pair started writing songs together and in December 2012 they released a cover of the classic Christmas song "Baby It's Cold Outside." Shortly afterwards Ariana called Mac and asked him to be in this song, which was recorded in January 2013. Mac filled in his parts later in the month after he finished touching up his mixtape.
The song samples the background groove from Brenda Russell's 1979 track "A Little Bit Of Love," which was later borrowed by Big Pun for his 1998 hip-hop song "Still Not a Player."
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