Justin Bieber Got an Unlikely Assist From a Los Angeles Laker

I really figured out it’s more about relationships rather than just making a million beats and hoping somebody picks it up. I have some good friends in the music industry and they would show me stuff. They would just teach me. You need this, buy this app, you need this right here. Just helping me get my producing right.

How do you find that balance, then, between being a professional basketball player and producer of Bieber bops?

I balance it by being a producer. I could rap if I wanted to, but I don’t think I would have time. It would take too much time away from basketball. As a producer, everything I have to do is right on my computer. I don’t have to actually go to the studio.

I tend to do studio sessions early because studio sessions can be extremely long. So I’ve learned not to start a studio session at 11 p.m. There are certain things that restrict me from being the best producer I could be because I have to go to sleep, but I make it work.

When did you sit down and create what we now know as “Available?”

I was in the studio with Poo Bear around November of last year. I didn’t know who I was making music for. I was playing some songs and samples and he stopped on this one sample that I had made. He looped it, put it in the computer and we just started writing to it. We ended up writing the whole song, but there were no drums or anything.

The original melody, when you hear it in the beginning of a song? That’s what I brought to the table.

And how did you find out that your work was going to be on Justin Bieber’s album?

Three months later, Poo Bear calls me, and we were talking about the fact that both of our houses had been broken into. We ended that conversation and he said, ‘Oh yeah, you’re on the album.’ I’m like, ‘What album?’

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/sports/basketball/javale-mcgee-justin-bieber-changes.html