Justin Bieber

My daughter is a massive fan of Justin Bieber, so I asked her to write about him to explain to me what he is all about, nice job Paige.

Justin Drew Bieber was born on March 1st 1994 in London, Ontario to Jeremy Bieber and Pattie Mallette. Soon after, Pattie became a single mother and raised Justin in Stratford, Ontario, and by working multiple jobs and living in low-income housing, she supported Justin and herself. From a young age, Justin learnt to play piano, drums, guitar and trumpet; this interest in music encouraged him to enter a local singing contest in 2007, aged 12, where he finished second. Pattie filmed his performance and uploaded it onto YouTube under Justin’s account name ‘Kidrauhl’ for family and friends to see.

Justin continued to upload videos of himself singing covers of classic songs and built up a fan base with millions of views and subscribers to his channel. In 2008, Scott “Scooter” Braun discovered one of Justin’s videos by accident, resulting in him contacting Pattie and inviting Justin to Atlanta, at age 13. This resulted in Justin obtaining an audition with LA Reid at Island Def Jam Music Group, where Justin got signed to Island Records in October 2008. Scooter Braun became his manager and he moved to Atlanta with his mother.

Justin’s first ever single “One Time” was released in May 2009 and went platinum ahead of his debut album “My World” being released in November 2009, which also went platinum in the US and double platinum in Canada and the United Kingdom. In January 2010 his most famous single “Baby” was released and went into the top 10 internationally and his follow up album “My World 2.0” was released in March 2010. In June 2010 Justin started his global My World Tour, which ended in October 2011 after 127 shows. In July 2010, Bieber was named the most searched celebrity on the internet and in November 2010 “My World Acoustic” album was released ahead of his first concert-documentary film “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never”, which was released in February 2011 along with another album “Never Say Never: The Remixes”. In June 2011, Forbes named Justin the second best paid celebrity under 30 and in November 2011 he released his Christmas Album “Under The Mistletoe”.

In June 2012, Justin released his 4th number one album “Believe” and in September 2012 the Believe World Tour began, consisting of 156 shows and ending in December 2013 and in January 2013 Justin released his album “Believe Acoustic”. After his tour, Justin released his 2nd concert film “Justin Bieber’s Believe” in December 2013 when he also released his album “Journals”.

During 2014, Justin took some time out to develop himself and write/produce a new album with a more mature R&B sound. In February 2015, the Grammy winning song “Where Are U Now” was released followed by “What Do You Mean?” in August, “Sorry” in October and “Love Yourself” in November, all of which went to number 1 making him the first artist in nearly a decade to have three number 1 singles from one record. In November, Justin released his sixth number 1 album “Purpose” and in March 2016 the Purpose World Tour began, which is still ongoing with new dates still being added.

As of today, Justin has sold approximately 100 million records worldwide, making him the best selling Canadian artist and one of the best selling artists of all time. He has had 3 Grammy nominations, 2 Brit awards, 13 Billboard awards, 20 Teen Choice awards and 18 MTV Europe Music Awards to name a few. He is also the first artist since Elvis Presley in 2005 to replace his own song as number 1 on the U.K. singles chart and he has 14 Guinness World Records including most streamed track on Spotify in one week, most streamed album on Spotify in one week, the first act to occupy all top three positions simultaneously on the UK singles chart and most followed male of Twitter.