Justin Timberlake is finally making his return to music.
The 42-year-old singer dropped a new single, “Selfish,” along with an accompanying music video, on Thursday, January 25. The release marks Timberlake’s first endeavor as a solo artist since his 2018 album, Man in the Woods.
The track, written by Louis Bell, Henry Walter, Theron Makiel Thomas and Amy Allen, features Timberlake’s signature R&B style and falsetto vocals. In the music video, the singer performs on a soundstage before discovering a door leading to a cramped hallway where everything is miniature. The video closes with Timberlake performing a solo dance number while multiple spotlights flash around him.
Timberlake debuted the song during a free concert in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday, January 19. After the performance, he uploaded a brief snippet of the track via his YouTube, Instagram and TikTok pages.
Justin Timberlake has come a long way since his humble beginnings in Memphis, Tennessee. Timberlake competed on Star Search in 1992 one year before he became a cast member on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera JC Chasez, Ryan Gosling and Keri Russell. Timberlake and Chasez stayed friends after their Mouseketeer […]
“Selfish” is the first single from Timberlake’s forthcoming album, Everything I Thought It Was, which drops Friday, March 15. In an April 2023 interview with Variety, producer and longtime Timberlake collaborator Timbaland shared that the star’s new project will be reminiscent of his 2006 Grammy-winning album, FutureSex/LoveSounds.
“We just finished up and everything sounds great,” Timbaland, 51, told the publication. “Now it’s really on him how and when he envisions it to come out, but it’s done and it’s coming.”
“Music is a young sport — of course, we’ve both seen a lot of life, but you have to bring out the 13-year-old kid again, you know?” Timbaland continued. “We had songs that maybe were too complicated, so we said we want it to feel like FutureSex part two, so we did songs that will fit that.”
Earlier this month, Saturday Night Live announced that Timberlake will return to the series on January 27 as a musical guest with host Dakota Johnson, marking 10 years since he last appeared on the sketch show.
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“I flirted with the idea of, ‘Should I host or ask to host?’ And then I just thought, ‘No, this album is really special to me in a different, different way,’” Timberlake told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe on Thursday. “And, yeah, you read that perfectly, but I also cannot imagine that I won’t get pulled into a sketch or two. It’s only natural. And I’m here for it. That’s always fun. SNL, for me, in any capacity. I’ve hosted five, but I don’t even know how many times I’ve been on the show.”
Though Timberlake took a break from being a solo artist, he reunited with fellow ‘NSync members last year for their first song together in 20 years. The former boy band teamed up for “Better Place,” which was featured in the movie Trolls Band Together.
