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Drake and DJ Khaled broke the internet last week when they dropped the video for their latest collaboration, “Popstar.” While the visual for the track started off with a conversation between both artists, fans were shocked once the song’s beat began and the camera panned to none other than Justin Bieber .
While cameos in music videos aren’t that uncommon among friends in the industry, Justin is the absolute star in the video, singing all of Drake’s lyrics for him throughout the entire thing. This unique idea not only gave everyone a laugh, but immediately had people wondering how they came up with such an outlandish idea.
The director of the “Popstar” video, Director X, and his new production company Fela’s other co-founder, Taj Critchlow, talked to eTalk‘s Tyrone Edwards and explained how the star-studded video came to be.
“We’ve been working on that whole project for a long time—from before quarantine,” X revealed. “Drake was going back and forth with ideas and the way Drake and I work, sometimes he’ll know an idea and actually have scenes laid out and sometimes he just has an idea.”
“This is one of those times where he was just like, ‘What if it’s Bieber? And Bieber is me?‘” he continued. “And I’m like, ‘Okay.’ And then I go in and sometimes it’s sort of like I’m the chef so then I go and I chef up the meal. Drake had it in his mind that the intro was Khaled and this wave of videos… and then he was like, ‘Oh man, I gotta call in a favor.’ And then from there I had to go figure [the rest of it] out.”
Director X went on to explain that as much as the project was a fun idea for Drake, it was more of a statement for Bieber, who has been in the process of shedding his partying pop star persona since settling down with his wife, Hailey Bieber .
“He needed to let the world know he had let that life go,” X said. “It was very serendipitous. Really, that’s what that’s about at the end. That big ‘Sigh. I love you, babe’ [to Hailey]—that’s a sigh of relief, like, ‘I’m out of that life.’ The subtext is ‘That’s not me and I’m so happy to be with you and walking the dog.‘”
So, while fans thought this was just a hilarious idea for a video, there’s actually a lot more meaning behind it for Justin, his wife, and his new life as a family man.
If you haven’t seen the video yet, check it out down below to see exactly what Director X is talking about.