Justin Bieber. Photo by Raymond Hall/GC Images
Earlier this week, Justin Bieber took to Instagram Live to show fans a trio of songs he’d been working on. The last of these was a Lil Pump-style bop, with Bieber repeating, “you ain’t never met nobody like me,” over a flubberized instrumental that sounds like Tyga, Iggy Azalea, or perhaps Migos at their Billboard friendliest. And the longest demo clocked roughly six minutes as Bieber hits a “Flatbed Freestyle” squeak over a beat that mildly recalls “Lens” by Frank Ocean; when Bieber adlibs, “ooh wee” on the track, it’s basically a Rick and Morty clip.
But the clear head-and-shoulders highlight was the second song he played. What starts as a spare, unassuming guitar and clap ballad is violently split by intense bass. “Damn — this shit gives me anxiety when I play it, but I wanna play it… It’s so raw,” Bieber explained on the Live. The song’s abrupt dynamics seem obviously indebted to XXXTentacion (perhaps as filtered through the music of skaiwater or Playboi Carti) even when operating under the assumption that the bass sounds blown-out due to iPhone mic capabilities, and not because Bieber suddenly started using goxan 808s.
Typical for Bieber World, the reaction to these demos was outsized. His fans seem predictably confused by the songs (last I heard, JB was working with indie rocker Mk.gee), but more critically concerned for his well-being. Bieber’s representative previously shut down speculation about the star’s health and sobriety back in February, and it seems like a pretty big jump from a handful of unflattering paparazzi photos to suggesting he’s using drugs or close to a tragic and preventable death. Speaking purely as an outsider to (pop) stan culture, I would guess that Selena Gomez’s recent musical successes and increasingly public-facing relationship with Benny Blanco has fans riled up, almost as eager to dramatize events as the clickfarming YouTubers titling videos “JUSTIN BIEBER CRASHES OUT OVER SELENA.”
Then again, there’s the unspoken elephant in the room, the assumption this sort of music is straight up beneath a popstar as white big as Bieber. You can get a sense of this from his previous ventures into the scene — “I’m the One” with DJ Khaled and co. went #1, but his 2013 “compilation” album Journals, which veered into R&B and hip-hop inspired territory, remained more of a cult favorite. Bieber’s selective forays into hip-hop are rare, but the standouts, like “Maria I’m Drunk” by Travis Scott, can be beyond successful: commercially viable, critical teflon, and dearly beloved, all at once. It’s important to note he’s equally liable to put together a rap dud (he has songs with Tyga and Asher Roth, for god’s sake), but when things are working, hip-hop audiences seem more comfortable with his cross-genre impulses than his pop fans are with the reverse.
There’s irony in that too, and not just because Bieber’s strain of pop, much like that of contemporaries including Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish, heavily cribs from hip-hop rhythms and iconography. JB has always been a rap fan, even if his Top 5 has shifted over the years (2012 — 2Pac, Andre 3000, Eminem, Nas, and Lil Wayne; in 2015 — Eminem, Mase, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and 2Pac; circa 2021, Lil Wayne, Biggie, Eminem, Kanye West, and Drake). While his taste has never been hyper-niche, it’s always felt genuine, lived in, maybe because Usher was his mentor or because Lil Twist was his roommate. Regardless, I’ve never suspected Bieber of using a music stylist, as some Kai Cenat viewers allege the streamer might.
Some selected highlights from the past decade and change of Bieber’s love affair with hip-hop include: remixing “Gas Pedal” by Sage the Gemini; rapping with RiFF RaFF; almost getting the “IDFWU" beat; hitting up Travis Scott to collaborate on Rodeo; covering “Thugz Mansion” on BBC Radio 1; dropping a snippet of a remix to “HUMBLE” by Kendrick Lamar on a random night at 1Oak; doing Drake and DJ Khaled a favor in the “Popstar” video; striking up a close creative relationship with Cactus Jack crooner Don Toliver; and hopping on a posthumous Juice WRLD album. He’s not stealing my job any time soon, but you could likely pass him the aux without cringing.
But where Bieber has truly shined as a rapper is when he gets in the weeds, cribbing from less mainstream pockets. The first inkling came back in 2017, when he put a verse on “Bankroll” by Diplo featuring Young Thug and Rich the Kid. That song was quickly scrubbed from the internet and replaced the following month with a version featuring FKA Rich Chigga (Rich Brian) instead of JB; you have to guess the lines, “Girl you talkin that shit, man I don’t wanna hear it,” and, “I’m lookin all around if that ass making an appearance,” didn’t quite gel with Bieber’s mildly-edgy-but-still-family-friendly image in the mid-2010s. On one level, this is also a standard sort of song, almost like an update on the EDM-hop blend of “WDYW” by Carnage. But Bieber’s decision to not just sing rhythmically, but actually rap on the song, seems in retrospect like a small but important pivot.
The real forebear to Bieber’s 2025 output — including this snippet from January that makes me think of Mercury or Valee as much as Carti or un-falsettoed 645AR — came in April 2022 with “I Feel Funny.” It’s a sub-90 second throwaway, really more like a teaser trailer for a subsequent video with Don Toliver, featuring Bieber rapping in a safety orange shiesty over a quavering dub bassline and staccato piano chords. Bieber lays down simple end rhymes that wouldn’t sound out of place on “The Spark,” but frankly, he sounds like he’s ripping off Tisakorean wholesale. (Considering Don Toliver interpolated Tisa’s February 2022 song “Backseat” on his 2023 album Love Sick, I’m forced to conclude JB has listened to mr.siLLyfLow at least as much as I have, and his favorite song was probably “he can’t do it like me”).
“I Feel Funny” is fine —I’m a little frightened of anyone who would earnestly say they listen to this as a song, even if it’s fun and bouncy — but seems to reflect sharpening taste and selectivity in Bieber’s hip-hop preferences. Even now, three mixtapes later, TisaKorean remains more of a niche artist than a known one (though still inarguably hilarious), and Bieber’s official output avoids anything too outlandish, tapping radio heavyweights like SZA, Quavo, and Kehlani when boosting his cultural bonafides. And while he’ll likely never make any seriously radical statements, I would be remiss not to acknowledge Bieber’s efforts to undergird those sonic overtures with philanthropic efforts and the occasional anti-racism push, even when his intentions lead him into David Guetta territory.
Besides, it’s cool to hear someone who cites Eminem, Mase, and 2Pac as his favs who isn’t caught up in traditional ideas of what hip-hop should be. I see in Bieber a holistic love for everything the genre is and can be, even if those things aren’t always the style of music you make or even want to hear. Even if he’s just making silly rap songs for fun, that honest appreciation of hip-hop in all its forms is a defining quality for most of my favorite rappers, from Boldy James and Nino Paid to MIKE and 1900 Rugrat (the latter of whom’s “Way 2 Geeked” soundtracked a recent IG post by the Biebs). Look back once more on Journals, the week-by-week singles rollout, how its hybrid rhythms of hip-hop and R&B are now the mode de rigeur for Top 40 pop. Justin isn’t about to drop an elite rap verse any time soon, but I’ll take a mid song by someone who loves this shit over a technically proficient but dispassionate one.
