Ava Max is one of the many artists on the Barbie soundtrack. She says she believes she was included because she basically willed it to happen.

“I have to say, I feel like I kind of manifested it,” the “Kings & Queens” singer tells The Global Chart Show on Apple Music 1. “Because a year ago I heard about it, and I called my A&R [guy] at Atlantic Records, and I was just like, ‘I hear you’re working on it. This is a dream of mine, aka I love Barbie. Okay, bye.'”

Ava says she’d been texting him about the project over the past year, until he finally said he’d arranged a Zoom meeting with the soundtrack’s producer, Mark Ronson. She watched part of the movie and then wrote her song, “Choose Your Fighter,” in a couple of hours with three of her favorite collaborators.

“We send it over, and [Barbie director] Greta [Gerwig] and Mark love it. They don’t want any revisions. They love it. And so it was just very meant to be,” Ava adds. “I was like, thank you Greta. I love you too.

“I just want[ed] to write something that’s very female empowering. And that’s my forte,” Ava says of the song. “‘Choose Your Fighter’ really is just like, go ahead, choose your fighter, be anything you want in the world…and that’s basically what this song means, just to do you.”

As for her own Barbie experience, Ava says she remembers being five years old and receiving a Barbie Dream house for Christmas. “It was basically my size,” she recalls, adding that she “just fell in love with Barbie ever since.”

Ava’s interview on The Global Chart Show on Apple Music 1 streams July 27 at 6 p.m. EST.

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