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Justin Bieber’s New Album Has Skrillex In Major Production Role, But R&B Biebs Isn’t Dead [Video]

By Page Mackinley
Published on: 08:13 PST, Aug 4, 2015

Based on Justin Bieber’s now deleted Instagram video, reports of the death of R&B Justin Bieber aren’t just greatly exaggerated, they appear to be straight up wrong.

The clip shows the Biebs dancing and lip-synching to pal and longtime music collaborator, singer-songwriter, Jason “Poo Bear” Boyd’s The Giver track, from the latter’s 2015 Beats 2 Make Love 2 mixtape. Boyd also shared the video at his Instagram page.

For 15 seconds, Justin is seen rocking R&B moves with “don’t care, blonde hair” — both literally and style-wise — in black leather pants, a matching hoodie top, and reflective blue aviators.

Take a look at the YouTube video below.

Any Justin Bieber fans who loved his R&B makeover when he dropped Journals in 2013 will no doubt be happy to watch the heartthrob vibing to Poo Bear after last week’s news that the Biebs’ upcoming music will sound similar to “Where Are U Now” — his pop/EDM collaboration with Jack U’s Skrillex and Diplo.

Last July, Justin posted 11 mostly R&B-influenced snippets on Instagram. Fast forward to the beginning of this year, the singer revealed Kanye West and Rick Rubin are producing his new album. However, since then, his musical team-up with Jack U went on to became one of the biggest songs of 2015 — peaking at No. 8 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, punching in over 200 millions streams, and going platinum in the U.S.

Not surprisingly, after announcing with Ryan Seacrest that his upcoming single “What Do You Mean?” will roll out on August 28, the Canadian revealed Skrillex now has a primary production role on his album — which he summed as “uplifting, clear, poppy but cool.”

To anyone keeping up with Skrillex and Bieber’s numerous, separate interviews, in which they express affection and respect for each other, it’s been clear for a while that Skrillex’s involvement on the Biebs’ album has grown past initial expectations.

Elaborating to Seacrest about the producer-DJ’s studio wizardry, Justin described the six-time Grammy award winner as “a genius, he’s super-futuristic and I just love his sound.”

The superstar explained he plans to “incorporate that sound with what I’m doing,” because “it’s new and fresh and I feel like no-one’s done it before.”

Intriguing. Does that mean the Biebs’ reportedly nearly wrapped album will mix up different sonics and rhythms from R&B, Pop and EDM genres, or will it be an entirely new, melting pot sound?

Previous leaked or surfaced snippets appear unfinished. That includes the recently leaked taster, “Perfect Together.” It’s unclear whether any of these, and others, will make the final cut on Bieber’s album.

Last week, fan Stalker Sarah revealed she and a group of other fans were invited by Justin to listen to some of his new material in a Los Angeles studio. Sarah, who is famous for her showbiz pictures and has a massive online following, nutshelled what she heard as, “very powerful, very soulful.”

On Monday (August 4), amid a series of tweets, R&B/Hip-Hop producer Soundz, (formally known as Kenneth C. Coby), replied to one Belieber who asked him to upload a Bieber cut titled “Supermodel” — which Soundz produced — saying “that [the song] was the old him, he’s matured a lot.”

Whether Soundz’s assessment has any bearing on how much or little R&B ends up on the singer’s new record remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: a lot of people are likely to be interested to hear what Skrillex brings to the mix on Bieber’s highly-anticipated, fourth full album.

[Images via Instagram]

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