Ariana Grande rejected attempts to make "Popular" sound more hip-hop
Let’s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit. Ariana said, ‘Absolutely not, don’t do it. I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda,'” Schwartz tells The Times. In fact, Grande was so protective of Glinda she didn’t even want to add what became a show-stopping dance break finale to the number.