Justin Bieber generally seems to take himself pretty seriously; he’s one of the few pop stars on his level who will happily show up to the Grammys to do sensitive-piano renditions of his goofy-ass songs to try to earn the respect of his music-business elders. Today, though, Bieber has randomly gone full-on joke-rap. Presumably, this will not signal some grand shift in career strategy for Bieber, but if you ever wanted to hear Bieber whisper-rapping over a bleepy, minimal beat, this is your chance.
Right now, Bieber is planning to release a new single called “Honest,” a Don Toliver collaboration that will presumably get a huge rollout very soon. Bieber is making an “Honest” video with Cole Bennett, the director who helped turn the late Juice WRLD into a star and whose antic, colorful visual sensibility is all tied up with the SoundCloud-rap movement. Apparently, somewhere in there, Bieber recorded a self-produced one-minute rap goof called “I Feel Funny.” Bennett writes:
Justin randomly texted me this song one day and said “should we do a visual to this? song straight to number 1.” We joked around about doing a video for it but never did. A few weeks later we were doing a pick up day for a video we had recently shot, but never finished (Honest). We had a bit of time switching over from scene to scene. So, I went into his trailer and said “Remember that song you sent me? Let’s shoot a video for it on my phone in between takes of the actual video.” … The rest was history. Enjoy.
So here’s Bieber, in a fluorescent-orange ski mask, talking about “This shit dicey/ You entice me/ What’s your sign?/ I’m a Pisces.” He’s kind of doing a kindergarten version of the Valee flow? Check it out below.
“I Feel Funny” is out now as an actual single, so it might go straight to #1? Maybe we should just be glad that he didn’t do it with James Corden.
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