Justin Timberlake's Man of the Woods album drops tomorrow after a few singles have since been released. As a way to get fans ready, the second part of JT's Zane Lowe interview has been released, where the singer details how his single "Say Something" was inspired by the backlash he received over a tweet to Jesse Williams.
If you can remember, the Grey’s Anatomy actor spoke at the 2016 BET awards on racial issues, social justice and cultural appropriation. Justin then tweeted that he was inspired by Jesse's statements, where he received a ton of backlash, where one user tweeted: "So does this mean you’re going to stop appropriating our music and culture? And apologize to Janet too. #BETAwards.”
In the Zane Lowe interview below, Justin explains how "Say Something," featuring Chris Stapleton, was written almost a year ago when "a lot of weird things were happening."
"He kind of came in and I thought to myself, it would be really cool to see if we wrote something and we just let Timbaland and Danja just dress it and just see what happens," JT explains. "And he came in and he was talking to me and he was like, 'How's everything been going?' I played him a couple of things that Pharrell and I had done, and he was like 'Wow, this is something different.' And I said 'I really think we could do something special.' He's like, 'What do you want to write about?'"
Furthermore in the video, the "TKO" singer details how he explained to Chris that "there's always misunderstandings" and he wanted to express his need to "say something."
When Zane brings up last year's Twitter mishap as an example of a misunderstanding, JT replies: "For sure. And I felt terrible, you feel terrible, like 'Oh man, that is not what I meant. Why did I do that?'"
Watch the video below.