As Justin Bieber’s latest album Justice is poised to take the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, the “Peaches” singer joined DJ Khaled for his podcast The First One on Amazon Music.
The pair discussed how rap has influenced Bieber’s music, with the pop star revealing his top five emcees around the 20:35 mark in the longer clip below. Lil Wayne, the Notorious B.I.G., Eminem, Kanye West, and Drake made the cut. Bieber also said that his fellow Canadian Drizzy is “constantly pushing culture and the needle forward.”
Bieber has answered this question before, usually offering up a different mix of the same heavyweights each time. Back in 2012, he told Complex his top five rappers were 2Pac, André 3000, Eminem, Nas, and Lil Wayne. Then, in 2015, he told French outlet Clique TV his favorites were Eminem, Mase, Nas, Biggie, and 2Pac.
Bieber also touched on his first hit song “Baby” with Ludacris, and the fact that he wasn’t in love with it even though it was written and produced by The-Dream. “I remember hearing the song at first and not—I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this but I’ll just say it—and not being super in love with the song,” he said around the 10:15 mark:
“It was just a reference and I remember Scooter [Braun] saying to me, ‘Just, you gotta get over the reference.’ It’s written by The-Dream, shoutout to The-Dream. But he moves so quickly and so he’s not stopping to get the lines perfect and so it’s just the scratch vocal. But for me, that’s all I could reference it off of, so I’m like, ‘Ah, I’m not sure about it.’ But when I got my voice on it, I immediately was just like, ‘This is such a special record.’”
Elsewhere, Bieber touched on his legendary run over the last 10 years, being discovered on YouTube, and growing up as an artist in the public eye. You can watch the rest of the episode here on Amazon Music.
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