quote:

Its influence is inescapable now; in February 2015, when it was released by Jack Ü “with Justin Bieber”, it was utterly new. “It literally changed music,” says Bear. “It took a while, but it ended up catching on. It was played, oh my God, so much on the radio.”

Where R Ü Now paved the way for What Do You Mean?, the lead single off Purpose and co-written by Bieber, Poo Bear and just one other. It was an immediate hit – the first number-one of Bieber’s half-decade career – and introduced to the charts the Caribbean-influenced tropical house sound now so ubiquitous, even Ed Sheeran has dabbled in it. (“It’s like, ‘out of all the people, I would have thought you would be somebody to do something different,” says Bear, slightly accusatorially.)