The room thaws over a few days — handshake to hug. ▤

Producing “♪Butterflies” with ⌜Marsha Ambrosius, Harris watched the distance close: “third, fourth day he started hugging me.” The full session — watching Jackson so he could memorize what he looked like — sits on the track's file.

His own finger-snap is in the master. ▤

A finger-snap Harris played got recorded straight into the track — a small piece of him left permanently in the record. That texture detail and the rest of the session live on the “Butterflies” file; kept here as the thing that made it his.

JACKSON LETS HIM KEEP HIS PUBLISHING. ▤

Harris was not required to sign away his publishing on “Butterflies” as a condition of the track making the album — unusual generosity in an industry where that's the standard toll. It's the single most career-significant fact about him in the whole research base, which is why it's the turn on this page and not a footnote on the track's.

INTERCEPT ┤ N-03 — WHAT JACKSON TOLD HIM

> HARRIS, on what Jackson told him: “Don't discredit your journey and what it took to get you to this point... This is your beginning. Imagine where you're going to go.”
> he said a near-identical version to co-writer Marsha Ambrosius too — the same benediction given to both collaborators, not two coincidences.

REPORTED SPEECH, NOT VERBATIM · as told in later interviews · press ▤

Still working: a new publishing deal, a new No. 1. ■

Harris signed a worldwide publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music, announced January 2026, and currently carries a credit on Kehlani's “Folded” (No. 1, Urban Radio/Mainstream R&B-Hip-Hop Airplay). Disambiguation note: search results sometimes conflate this Andre “Dre” Harris of Dre & Vidal with an unrelated, deceased house-music DJ of the same name — any future sourcing on him should be confirmed as the R&B producer, not the DJ.