BLACKBEAR

Blackbear, formerly known as underground indie artist Mat Musto, co-wrote Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” along with Mike Posner, and he’s slowly becoming one of the music industry’s secret weapons. While his best-known accomplishment to date is still his contribution to Justin Bieber’s Believe, he had some time to work on songwriting skills well before that. On the songwriting front, Blackbear has already collaborated with Ne-Yo, Rivers Cuomo, Pharrell Williams, Bei Maejor, Machine Gun Kelly and Childish Gambino. Oh, and like most people who write major hits for other people, he’s been busy writing soon-to-be hits for himself: Blackbear recently released Foreplay, the first installment of a four-part EP series. His vibe defies oversimplified genre-tiziation (is that a word?), but he’s got Frank Ocean’s R&B sensibilities mixed with a hint of Owl City’s twinkling pop synths mixed with that folktronica sound I can’t ever get out of my brain. “Teenage Waste,” the first track on Foreplay (album art hat tip, by the way) showcases Blackbear’s smooth vocals with his out-of-the box production value. By the end, you’re really not quite sure if you’ve just listened to dubstep, pop or R&B, but you do know that, as the EP’s name suggest, you’re gonna wanna stick around for more.