Until now Justin Bieber hasn’t directly challenged the sum of online attacks, celebrity snark, and ongoing media criticism that has come his way since his Miami DUI arrest and charges , assault allegations in Toronto, and a Defcon 5 egging-related police raid. The 19-year-old has now ended his radio silence with a new song declaring he “cannot be broken.”
“ Broken ,” features L.A-based rapper Blake Kelly and dropped online Friday on Believe tour DJ Tay James’ We Know The DJ Radio 4 mixtape. Bieber previously featured on Vol. 3 with rapper Tyga’s “ Wait For A Minute .”
Justin tweeted “keeping it positive always” eight hours after a defiant Twitter statement most likely aimed at the media, the over 261,000 signees to a We The People petition demanding his deportation, recent vitriol from Drake Bell , Seth Rogen, Sharon Osbourne , and the many who tweeted a picture of a billboard sign which said that the loser of the men’s hockey Sochi semifinals USA Vs. Canada “keeps Bieber.”
I guess I’m an easy target for some. I’m still human. I will continue to meet hate with love. It’s all about the music. Much love
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) February 21, 2014
Thanks to all those beliebers out there inspiring me everyday
— Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) February 21, 2014
So, without further ado, to Bieber’s first, confrontative musical output since his catastrophic 2014 start that now ushers court dates next month for two criminal charges. In a voice that isn’t so much a snarl as a promise, the embattled pop prince begins,
“I guess they want a reaction/ But I ain’t gonna give it to ’em / Yeah they’re trying to get at me yeah / But I ain’t gonna feed into it / Ooh baby they’re persistent / Tryna’ to break me down,” the teen sings over a mid-tempo Moog-fused hip-hop beat before looping “I cannot be broken” over the song’s old-school chorus.
Continuing in the same vein, Bieber declares, “They can’t take what’s mine / Someone like me is hard to find / Ooh I cannot be broken / Like I knew you were hoping / Way too strong for that / Ooh you were wrong for that,” just before Kelly’s rap.
Hey Canada, best 2 out of 3… errr… best 3 out of 5? pic.twitter.com/n7tLp8qyu0
— Command Sign (@CommandSign) February 21, 2014
“ Broken “ echoes the spirit, if not the intense rage of Michael Jackson’s 1995 “ Scream ” duet with Janet, after sexual abuse allegations in 1993 and a humiliating strip-search by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
In yet another parallel with his hero whose latter arc he appears to be shadowing, Bieber’s own penis is now the subject of surreal, objectifying discussion as news media organizations fight with his legal team for the release of jail footage of the singer – specifically his urination into a cup for a drug test — at Miami Beach police station after his DUI arrest last month.
Not at all surprisingly, no-one is asking to see Bieber’s far less famous co-arrestee Khalil Sharieff’s drug test (he also tested positive for marijuana). And it surely doesn’t need to be said that a public records request to see a female defendant’s urination would never come up, which says a great deal about inequality under the law.
Meanwhile in recent DUI hall of fame, David Cassidy is on his third and is nearly three times Bieber’s age, R&B singer Miguel has just pleaded no contest, Washington RedSkins’ Fred Davis was allegedly asleep at the wheel , and Chris Kattan was so loaded he crashed into a parked vehicle on the 101 Freeway. None of these have attracted the level of attention given to Bieber.
Over in Atlanta, a picket protest is being planned by the Buckhead Neighborhood Coalition outside a house it’s rumored Bieber has his eye on buying. Many of the commenters at the Facebook page behind the protest are copying and pasting media reports that slammed the teen singer; again demonstrating the reach and effect of skewed narratives.
Spin magazine called the furor over Bieber’s penis the “endpoint of all journalism.” We’ll go further and suggest the gleeful mounting of a wholesale media assault against the Canadian is a profit-oriented loss of perspective over teen follies that may well prompt an emotional and mental meltdown and the end of a career he worked for.
The unseemly media request to see Bieber’s penis isn’t just an endpoint of journalism, but an endpoint of basic decency to a human being at a vulnerable moment.
Bieber’s “ Broken “ can be heard below.