Poo Bear has been the driving songwriter behind some of the biggest pop songs to hit the scene within the last two decades. From Usher's "Caught Up" to Justin Bieber's "Where Are Ü Now" and a string of others, the hitmaker (born Jason Boyd) has made his way through the course of sex-drenched R&B, EDM-charged pop and even jumpstarted the recent Latin explosion with his Bieber remix of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito."
Scroll through his resume and it'll become clear that the Atlanta-based multi-talent knows how to work through a number of genres, which brings us to his recently released debut studio album, Poo Bear Presents Bearthday Music.
Hours before the release of the 15-track set, which includes the likes of Bieber, Jennifer Lopez, J Balvin as well as a batch of newcomers, the songwriting force took to iHeartRadio to discuss the workings of the release, his desire to remain a behind-the-scenes extraordinaire and the vision he has if he ever locks in studio time with his dream collaborator Céline Dion.
The album includes a bunch of heavy hitters and a lot of new people. Was it your intent to show some that much love to budding acts that are trying to make it on the scene?
Yeah, I wanted Bearthday Music to be a vehicle for, of course, established artists, but more so for introducing new artists to the marketplace. Just having this vehicle where once a year I put out an album, just like a birthday, and you're going to hear some of my heavy hitter friends and then you can look forward to hearing some new music and new artists that I've been working with and investing my energy into. I wanna be that curator of music that presents this music every year and I want you to look up and say, oh I heard about Nechie first on Poo Bear presents Bearthday Music album. It's a cool thing, not just to have established artist but to also show love to up and coming artists.
And when it comes to the heavy hitters, you have J. Lo, J Balvin, Bieber, etc. Were any of them hard to wrangle?
You know what? Fortunately, my job as a songwriter had already worked with these artists, so we had records. We had the beginning of records and ideas that all we had to do was for me to go in and finish them. They, fortunately, made time to actually knock them out and a lot of it was done, so it worked out in both of our favors because I really didn't need them that much. It was more so we had already did the work and instead of those songs just going into the music abyss, what I call it, it just became a part of Poo Bear presents BearthdayMusic.
And you want to do Bearthday Music every year?
I do. It's like a birthday, I have to. I'm committed to it.
Who would you like to get on next year's installment?
Oh man. I would absolutely love to have a record with Céline Dion. There's a new Latino artist named Jay Cortez that's up and coming. I really want it to be spread out. I never want it to be predictable. I would love to find a Nigerian artist. Find an Indian artist because I just feel like right now everybody's jumping on to the reggaeton, latino movement, which we were blessed to be a part of early. Now, I'm seeing there's other cultures that we can merge our music with their music and see what happens. I will have to literally really think about. I just know I'm a huge fan of Céline Dion and I would love her to be a part of it and several other artists that I just can't think of right now.
What kind of record would you want Céline to do? How about a power ballad?
Oh, it would definitely be. I would love for it to be a power ballad that's merged with an EDM record. Something like "Where Are Ü Now." You know how it sounds like it was a ballad and then when the beat comes in everybody's jamming? That way you get the best of both worlds. You move people emotionally and people still want to dance and feel good at the same time.
Original article by James Dinh at iHeartRadio