A sequel built around the guest list
The title No. 6 Collaborations Project points back to No. 5 Collaborations Project, an independent EP Ed Sheeran made with grime artists early in his career. The 2019 album expanded that idea into a full studio release: rather than treating guest appearances as occasional highlights, it gives every track at least one featured artist.
That changes the album’s basic structure. Each song has to make room for another performer’s voice, style, and musical identity—not simply Sheeran’s own. The result is less like one uninterrupted solo statement and more like a sequence of distinct pairings.
Different voices, different musical worlds
The guest list spans artists from pop, hip-hop, R&B, and other styles, including Justin Bieber, Eminem, Cardi B, Khalid, and Travis Scott. That range lets Sheeran move between musical settings from track to track. A collaboration can bring a contrasting vocal tone, a rap verse, or a style of delivery that would be difficult to create by layering Sheeran’s own performance alone.
The tradeoff is that the album’s cohesion comes less from a single sound than from Sheeran’s presence across the pairings. The organizing idea is the collaboration itself: each track tests what happens when his songwriting meets a different artist’s approach. In practical terms, the record turns guest features from an occasional embellishment into its central creative constraint—and gives listeners a new musical combination to encounter with every song.
