Justin Bieber: The Kid an Accidental Click Turned Into a Superstar
Scooter Braun was not hunting for the next pop star. He clicked one of Justin Bieber’s cover videos by accident, and then, to his credit, he kept watching. A boy from a small town in Ontario had been singing into a camera for the internet. A phone call, a flight to Atlanta and a meeting with Usher later, the accident had a record deal.
It went fast. “One Time” reached No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2009, and his first record, “My World”, made him the first solo artist to put four singles in the Hot 100 top 40 before a debut album had even come out. A year later “My World 2.0” made him the youngest solo male to top the Billboard 200 since Stevie Wonder in 1963.
Then came “Baby”, a song the internet loved to hate. It was the most-disliked video on YouTube until 2018, and also one of the most-watched. Few artists have been so mocked and so unavoidable at the same time.
The real turn was “Purpose” in 2015. After years of tabloid chaos, he returned with an album that produced three American No. 1 singles, “What Do You Mean?”, “Sorry” and “Love Yourself”, and held the top three spots of the UK singles chart at once. In 2017 the “Despacito” remix, with his verse, tied the then-record for most weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100.
In July 2025, after a long break, he released “Swag” with almost no warning, followed by “Swag II”. Today he has more than 120 million monthly listeners on Spotify and an estimated 150 million records sold. You can hear the whole catalogue on the station “Exclusively Justin Bieber” in the Exclusive section of Kalisha.
— Kalisha 🎧
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