Justin Bieber is a pop music veteran at just 27 years old, and his latest album, Justice, showcases why he’s spent over a decade on the charts. The onetime teen idol reflects on more mature themes this time around, including love, religion, and—as the title suggests—justice with heavy R&B influences and features from Khalid, The Kid LAROI, Lil Uzi Vert, and more.
Bieber tapped an array of collaborators for the project, including watt, Skrillex, Louis Bell, Jon Bellion, and benny blanco. He also recruited HARV, his music director and longtime collaborator who first earned credits on 2011’s Under the Mistletoe and 2012’s Believe, as well as ALDAE, whose recently earned a big look writing with Demi Lovato and Marshmello on “OK Not to Be OK.”
Genius caught up with the latter two artists in a recent phone interview to discuss their work on the project, watching “Peaches” hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart, the album’s social justice theme, and what the public doesn’t know about Justin Bieber as an artist.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview by Chris Mench.
HARV: I met Justin in 2010. He wanted to put a band behind him and I was already in Atlanta in different studios bouncing around and [one of my collaborators] was just like, “I think you would be a good fit for this new kid. Just to be around. You both are coming up. You’d be a good fit to play in his band.” I went and met him one day and then we just clicked and I’ve been rocking with him ever since.
Aldae: He had heard my music through Josh Goodwin, his engineer, who I had met through my publisher. And then Josh connected me with Skrillex, and Skrillex actually made the link up in person through Bieber’s DJ. And that was over last summer and it was really fun to be in the studio with them and getting them the records and work remotely and send stuff back and forth and make changes for them.
Aldae: It was all quite deep and I think he was a transformative headspace of wanting to go deeper and more mature. I think transformative in a mature sense and even the sonics. Leveling up for sure. Just pushing the boundaries and really making a strong pop star album, like a body of work.
HARV: We’ve been doing so many performances lately. Because I’m his music director at the same time. So we were doing the New Year’s performance or the Tiny Desk performance or the Valentine’s day thing we did with TikTok. So we’ll keep that same energy of the live performances and we’ll just go to the studio with that same energy. I think when you listen to Justice, you can hear all those elements in the music.
Me and Justin are both real musicians. We can sit down and play instruments and jam out for three hours. We will just play instruments and we’ll record. We record everything that we do. And then we end up with three or four songs and we’ll be like, “Oh, we love this. So let’s go with that. Okay, let’s really solidify these vocals or these lyrics or these chords.”
HARV: “Peaches” is really a testament to the times that we live in right now. So Justin’s on Instagram playing this piano melody and he’s singing these lyrics and immediately I put the fire emoji. So then at the same time, Shndō, who co-produced the record with me, sends me Justin’s Instagram audio. I hit Shndō like, “Yo, we need to go to the studio right now. Let’s go produce it.”
I text Justin what we did, like this is what you did on Instagram. Justin FaceTimes me. He was like, “Yo, this is crazy.” All of this happened in one day; he goes to the studio, re-records his vocal—because the only vocal that we used was from Instagram—and writes a verse.
Probably an hour and 30 minutes goes by and I’m at the studio working on something else, and Justin FaceTimes me. He was like, “Yo, you’re not going to believe this. I got GIVĒON to jump on the second verse.” GIVĒON writes his verse, kills it. I slapped GIVĒON’s verse in and that was the song for probably three weeks,
Then one day Justin FaceTimes me again. Justin really A&R'ed “Peaches” like crazy. He like, “Yo, I want to get Daniel [Caesar] on it.” I did Daniel’s instrumental and then Daniel jumps on it and the rest is history. But it all started from Justin playing something on Instagram. No other songs to this magnitude happen like that. I could see if it was just an album cut, but for it to be the single and then No. 1, that just shows you anything is possible now with technology.
Aldae: I did not know that [he wanted to sample MLK] from the beginning, it wasn’t a part of the original record, but I think it’s cool. That’s how he wanted to kick off the record and it’s a great conversation piece and it pulls you into the album. A lot of classic albums have a intro or a prelude. I think that’s part of his artistic expression. MLK is one of the most influential speakers ever.
When people hear the word justice, I think that they automatically think of political or almost like in a criminal justice act, to write wrongdoings or something. But I think for this album it’s Justin wanted to do his gift justice. He has this platform and he has this influence and he’s given these gifts from God. His voice, his team has power and it’s like, he wanted to put out good energy into the world and do justice by his gifts.
I think he executed that in an amazing way. I think people were always going to say, “Oh, well, he didn’t even address justice,” but there’s always layers to what justice means to somebody. I think he executed his form of justice well.
HARV: We had a meeting and he just wanted us all to be on the same page while working on this album and to know his heart and what he wanted to convey during this time with the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, and everything that’s happening.
Aldae: I had that one for a year and a half, and I never could get the pre-chorus right. I just knew there was another level to the pre and I took that to Rami, who is Max Martin’s right-hand man, and he helped me bridge the verse to the chorus, like effortlessly. Then, one day went back to the studio and I said “I can take these lyrics one step further.” And I switched the lyrics, one day before Justin cut it.
For “Unstable,” he was like, “I want this to become past tense.” He wanted to show that he got past that dark and didn’t want to project being unstable again. He made really fine important tweaks to really cater to how he felt. It’s crazy how much those details can take something over the edge, and I feel like he’s a master detailer there. He’s an expert at that, taking a good idea, a really solid idea, and really making it great.
Aldae: I think he’s going through a place that he’s going to share more of his creative process and people will get to know him in this next transition as an artist. Hopefully, as much as the public figure celebrity that he is, because there is an artist in there and he is a pop star. I think people have always known that in his vocal performance because he sings the sh-t out of things, and there’s a lot of emotion.
HARV: I don’t think they know [that] he’s really involved in everything. He knows exactly how he wants to sound, who he wants to produce. Even if the track is good, he’s like, “No, HARV. I think we need to add this. Or what do you think? I want it to sound like this.”
He’s very hands-on creatively with everything that’s going on with him. I’m saying his looks, his pictures, his everything. He’s in charge of himself right now. I don’t think people really know because you say Justin Bieber and they’re like, “Oh the kid?” Yeah, he’s growing up. But I don’t think people really know how involved he is right now and how in sync he is with himself.
I’ve just been blessed to be a part of his whole career. I’ve seen him in the teenage years when he had no say over his career, where he just had to sing and perform songs that certain people made him sing. And then I saw him when he was trying to be rebellious and doing certain things that he shouldn’t have done. Now seeing this era of Justice where he’s as happy as he says.
He’s very understanding of what’s happening in his career. He knows exactly what he wants. He knows exactly what music he wants to put out, and a lot of that has to do with him and Hailey. He’s married, he’s happy. For me to be a part of that whole transition and every little era of his life is just a blessing.
