How is my dude gonna swap out 2Pac with Drake…

Justin Bieber is hitting the promo circuit hard following the release of his sixth studio album Justice, doing everything from Tiny Desk to the Today Show and, perhaps most importantly, DJ Khaled’s super random Amazon Show The First One. The conversation saw the two chop it up and talk about everything from the new album to his favourite artists at the moment and of course, a topic that comes up in every hip hop interview: His top five favourite rappers.

His list has definitely changed over the years, the last time he was asked being in around 2015 when he was only 21 years old (feel old yet?). His answer back then was pretty solid and hard to dispute, naming GOATs like Eminem, Mase, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac, but now, it seems he’s more focused on the newer wave, the new GOATs who are inspiring the up and coming rappers popping up every day. Thus, while retaining Em and Big, he now counts Lil Wayne, Kanye West and fellow Canadian Drake as his favourite rappers of all time. He had a reason ready to go for Driz as it would no doubt drum up debate, stating that his music is “constantly pushing culture and the needle forward”.

The man definitely has a point, but damn, considering Drizzy and perhaps more strongly Ye, are known to constantly use ghostwriters, it’s a bit of a weird list, but we do get his reasoning. I guess what we value in hip hop in 2021 has changed significantly since back in the old days.

Check out the interview below as well as his 2015 list to see how far our boy JB has come.