This August, Dead & Company will celebrate 60 years of Grateful Dead music with three massive concerts in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Fans can reasonably assume – as they can with most major touring artists today – that the sound will be impeccable.

But six decades ago, when the Grateful Dead began gigging around that very same park, quality sound was far from a given. Audiences routinely endured terrible audio, and bands also struggled to parse the noise and play together. Modern cornerstones of concert production, from monitors to digital delay towers, had yet to be invented.

The Grateful Dead didn’t just embrace new advancements in audio technology – as journalist and Deadhead Brian Anderson chronicles in his new book, Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection, the revered band actively drove concert sound forward, creating many of today’s standards in the process.

Loud and Clear specifically tackles the first decade of the band’s history, from its Bay Area formation in 1965 to the Wall of Sound, the gargantuan sound system worth nearly $2 million in today’s dollars that it took on the road in 1974. During those years, the band and the cast of characters in its orbit – from an audiophile LSD chemist to hard-nosed roadies – continually iterated its sound system, introducing numerous innovations in service of creating a deeper performer-listener connection through quality sound. The pinnacle was the Wall of Sound, a technological marvel that towered behind the band and allowed each musician to manipulate their individual mixes in real time.

“I knew this was for a general audience,” says Anderson, who asked himself, “How do I make it digestible and explain this stuff in a way people are gonna understand?” The son of Deadheads – who saw the band repeatedly in this era and took him as a toddler to see the Dead at Alpine Valley in the late ‘80s – found the answer in those strong personalities within the Dead’s organization. Loud and Clear is as much a story about the Dead’s audio equipment as it is about the band’s musical philosophy and the way money, fame, and excess challenged it. 

“The wheels came very close to coming off,” Anderson says of the Dead in this era. The band took the Wall of Sound – which, when its almost 600 speakers were assembled, measured 60 feet long and more than three stories tall – on the road for nearly 40 shows in 1974, and the unprecedented production feat came close to bankrupting the Dead and tearing it apart. Plus, at a time with far fewer regulations, transporting, assembling, and disassembling the Wall came with plenty of risks for the (often inebriated) crew tasked with doing so; Loud and Clear’s at-times harrowing narrative includes broken arms, nearly-severed toes, falling equipment, electrocutions and flipped trucks. “It’s amazing that nobody bit it,” Anderson says.

The Dead ultimately carried many of the lessons of the Wall of Sound into the proceeding years – but after taking a hiatus in 1975, returned without the advanced system in 1976. “They somehow kept it together,” Anderson says, “but there was a collective sigh of relief at the end of 1974 when they’re like, ‘OK, you know what? Let’s take a break here.’”

What inspired you to write a book not just about the Dead, but about such a specific topic and period?

I am the child of early Deadheads who both started seeing the band in the late ’60s and early ’70s in Chicago and the tri-state area. I grew up hearing them talk about the Wall of Sound and this system’s sonic clarity. They would talk about seeing the band perform with this massive assembly of gear behind them – and it’s called the Wall of Sound, so it’s just captivated me my entire life.

As time went on, I grew to appreciate the scale of the Wall. When I was at VICE, I was the Features Editor [at science and tech vertical Motherboard], and I thought it would be cool to do a deep dive into the Wall of Sound. I embarked on writing that initial story because I knew that it had more than just the technology component – it’s a story about obsession, obsessive people who came from all walks of life. After that story came out, it quickly dawned on me that there’s so much more here – like, maybe I could do a full book on this one day.

How did the Dead’s pursuit of quality sound differentiate themselves from their peers and ultimately help them amass the following that they did?

Not long after the band had gotten going, [singer/guitarist] Jerry Garcia’s mother, Ruth, purchased her son a pair of Klipsch speakers. That was, basically, the very first iteration of the Dead’s sound system. No other bands at the time had their own rig like that, so immediately, they were elevated above most of their peers, at a time when musical PAs didn’t exist. Most any club that they were playing at the time, if it did have a sound system, it was just a small little box to like each side of the stage. The famous example, on a bigger level, is the Beatles at Shea Stadium. Live sound presentation in the mid ’60s was kind of terrible.

Then they get hooked up with Owsley Stanley, who was their patron and their original sound man. He was using money that he was making from manufacturing LSD to bankroll the band. He was kitting them out with top-flight gear by early 1966 – and right around that time, the acid tests were getting going. The Dead were basically the in-house band at the acid tests, and the acid tests would be the model that they would follow, really, through the end of their career: During the acid tests, the band and the crowd were all the same organism, everyone was in the same sonic envelope.

The whole point of putting [all the audio equipment] at the musicians’ backs [in the Wall of Sound in 1974] was to ensure that the band and the crowd would all hear the same thing and be in the same sonic envelope together – and that harkened right back to the acid tests. There’s also an ethic with the Dead that was there from the very early days: That ethic was to present the sound in such a way that the person in the very back row would experience the exact same thing as someone who was hanging right on the barrier. Part of their righteous approach to sound was to present the sound in such a way that everyone in the space together [would] experience the same high quality.

At its roots, the Dead almost had a punk-like, DIY ethos. What tensions did that introduce as the band’s operation grew and professionalized?

By the early ’70s, the sound system that was growing into the Wall of Sound had become the center of the Dead’s homegrown world-building project, which included their own record label, in-house travel and booking agencies, a publishing arm, and a whole cottage industry of boutique sound and audio companies that were building kit for the Dead. [The Dead wanted] to do everything their own way; it didn’t necessarily make sense to do what they were doing, but they did it anyway. It was super, super punk, super DIY.

From the very beginning, they would always funnel money back into their sound system – that’s basically how the Wall of Sound was able to grow. As early as mid-1973, management was starting to be like, “Hey guys. We can’t do things like we did in the very early days.” It became clear that they were hemorrhaging money through this sound system. By mid-’74, it was starting to get through to Garcia and some of the other band members that this was not sustainable. Despite their wanting to continue on in this very punk, DIY fashion where money would just always be funneled back into the sound system, the reality was such that they couldn’t do that anymore.

As much as the book is about the band, it’s also about the crew that surrounded it. Why emphasize those supporting characters?

I knew that if I was gonna do this book, I had to push the story forward somehow. I didn’t want to just tell this story through old sound bites from Jerry Garcia or Bob Weir or Phil Lesh. There were so many other people who were in the room in this era who helped put this thing together and who made it go on the road, setting it up and tearing it down. I was really interested in illuminating what the day-to-day was like of conceiving [the Wall of Sound] and building it and taking it on the road. I wanted stretches of the book to kind of feel like you’re going on tour with them.

Your book outlines several audio innovations by the band, including pioneering the use of on-stage monitors, helping to invent digital delay towers, and using feedback-cancelling microphones to make the Wall of Sound work. What were the most significant lasting impacts the Dead had on modern concert audio?

There’s a number of them. A curved speaker, no one had done that before the Dead. The theory and the mathematics existed, so a curved speaker existed on paper, but the Dead were really the first to fly a curved speaker. Today, you go to see Metallica at a stadium or you go see a local punk band at the dive bar, you’re gonna see versions of a curved speaker – and that’s the Dead lineage.

Delay towers, that’s not the Wall of Sound, but an adjacent sonic first that the Dead and their crew and their technicians helped forge in that era. Kezar Stadium, RFK, Watkins Glen, those three [big outdoor concerts] in summer of ’73 were crucial to figuring out digital delay. That’s another convention of modern sound reinforcement at much bigger shows that anyone is familiar with.

From a philosophical standpoint, a lasting impact of all the Dead’s innovations in the audio realm in this era was an elevated presentation. The Dead instilled this awareness of pursuing the highest-quality sound that you can because you owe it to your audience, because these people are coming to see you perform.

And in turn, that reoriented what fans expected of concert audio, not just at the Dead’s shows but at any show.

By the time the Dead came back from their hiatus in 1976, the world of audio had kind of caught up to them. They realized, “We don’t need to carry this massive equipment with us anymore, because the state of the art has advanced to a point where we can rent a sound system that sounds just as good, if not better, than the Wall of Sound for a fraction of the price.” A lot of that really owes to the ground that they broke through the Wall of Sound.

At a couple points in the book, you quote Garcia interviews from this period where, when lamenting the challenges of ensuring quality audio on tour, he says he wishes the band could have its own venue tailored to its own production standards. That never came to pass – but today, Dead & Company has played upwards of 40 shows at Sphere in Las Vegas. What would Jerry have thought of Sphere?

Last year, the first time I went to the Sphere, walking in, I couldn’t help but draw all of these connections. In the very early ’70s, they were always having conversations about, “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if we had our own spot where we could set up our sound system, just exactly perfect, and people can come see us perform?” They started to take some very serious steps to figure out, “OK, what would this space look like?” One of the ideas they were kicking around was a Buckminster Fuller-style geodesic dome – like a sphere. So, you walk into the Sphere to see Dead and Company, it’s like, “Oh, here it is.” Inside of the Sphere is basically the Wall of Sound, but taken to an exponential degree. The Wall of Sound walked so the Sphere could run.

I have to think Garcia would’ve been tickled to take the Sphere for a ride. There’s the public perception of Garcia as this wooly, hippie-type guy, but he was always embracing the cutting edge, from the gear that he was playing and just experimenting with to getting really into computers in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He just loved, like, f—king around with the newest technology.

What’s your favorite Wall of Sound show?

June 16, 1974, at the Des Moines Fairgrounds, for sonic and setlist reasons as much as personal reasons – my mother was at that show. That show, to me, is the epitome of your outdoor Grateful Dead show in the sun in the summertime. An amazing show. [Editor’s note: Selections from this show were officially released in 2009 as Road Trips Volume 2 Number 3, which is available on streaming platforms.]

Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection will be released by St. Martin’s Press on June 17. 

The Canadians are beefin’.

Drake wasn’t happy with the former leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party for attending one of the Kendrick Lamar and SZA Grand National Tour stops in Toronto last week. The Toronto rapper posted a screenshot on his Instagram Story of his DMs with Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh where he said to him, “You’re a goof,” after Singh was spotted at the show.

After facing some backlash from Toronto natives and Drake fans on social media, Singh seemingly saw the error in his ways and took to his own Instagram Story to issue an apology. “I went for SZA, not Kendrick,” he tried to clarify. “I was born in this city. I love this city. But real talk, I get it. I shouldn’t have gone at all. OVO and Drake have lifted up this city and [Canada]. For me it’ll always be Drake over Kendrick.”

A lot went down during the first Toronto tour stop that could easily have gotten under Drizzy’s skin. Lamar performed “Not Like Us” during the first date in Toronto and was asked by the crowd to perform the hit diss song again in its first live performance in Drake’s backyard. Footage also surfaced of fans rapping “Not Like Us” while visiting Chinese restaurant New Ho King amid rumors of heightened security surrounding the concert.

In other Drake related news, he dropped a new verse on his OVO signee Smiley’s recent single “2 Mazza” from his album Don’t Box Me In. And he had to reschedule a stream with Kai Cenat twice to finish going through submissions for their “Somebody Love’s Me” video treatment cash giveaway, with one of the streaming dates scheduled during K-Dot and SZA’s first Grand National Toronto date.

Add this to the latest chapter of the Kendrick vs. Drake saga.

“I look back at that time, and it was so romantic,” Ryn Weaver tells Billboard, “and I was so young, and so brave, and so scared, and kind of staying high so I didn’t have to come down.”

Weaver needs every adjective she can find to describe the personal and professional whirlwind that she experienced a decade ago. In June 2014, the singer-songwriter born Aryn Wüthrich made her debut with “OctaHate,” a sleek, lightly swaying synth-pop gem with effervescent verses and a hammered-down hook; she uploaded the track onto Soundcloud, and it rapidly took off with pre-TikTok social media shares and critical approval. 

Pop Twitter noted the song’s pedigree — not only did “OctaHate” boast a co-writing credit from a then-red-hot Charli XCX with Weaver, but Benny Blanco, Passion Pit leader Michael Angelakos and Norwegian polymath Cashmere Cat all helped pen and produce the song. But more immediate were 21-year-old Weaver’s dynamic voice and theatrical delivery, adding dramatic heft to each of the song’s finely crafted melodies. Combined with the news that “OctaHate” preceded a debut album that Blanco and Angelakos would co-helm, and that Blanco would release through his Interscope imprint Friends Keep Secrets, Weaver appeared to have the skills and industry buy-in to become an alt-pop star.

Weaver’s debut, 2015’s The Fool, brimmed with promise and personality, debuting at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 and prompting a headlining tour and festival dates over the following year. None of the follow-up singles built upon the commercial success of “OctaHate,” though, and a follow-up album never materialized. “It was also very sad, and very heartbreaking,” Weaver says today, “and I was very lost, even though I was just charging into the night.”

In the years since, Weaver’s name would pop up as a co-writer on songs like 2019’s “Dream Glow” by BTS and Charli XCX, and 2021’s “Just For Me” by SAINT JHN and SZA; “Pierre,” the anthemic fan favorite from The Fool, has also been a perennial TikTok favorite, inspiring multiple trends beginning in 2021 and racking up even more U.S. on-demand streams at this point than “OctaHate” (111.7 million to 63.4 million, according to Luminate). Yet Weaver, whose wit and sincerity once made her a must-follow on Twitter and Instagram, mostly vanished from social media, and years passed between updates on in-the-works music.

On Monday (June 16) — the 10-year anniversary of The Fool — that wait finally ended. “Odin St” may be Weaver’s first official single in a decade, created with a darker tone (courtesy of co-producers Benjamin Greenspan and Constantine Anastasakis) and a more mature perspective. But longtime fans will recognize the idiosyncratic wordplay, loping syllables and ornate hooks that bend toward a major chorus, all as magnetic today as when Weaver barreled into view a decade ago.

Now 32 and without a label — she’s no longer working with Blanco but describes their parting as amicable, and says that she still keeps in touch with Angelakos — Weaver says that “Odin St” will lead into the sophomore act that she always knew she had inside of her, but which required time to germinate. 

“I went through a very singular, and yet kind of clichéd, experience,” Weaver explains of her early stardom, “where I didn’t feel like I could fully communicate it yet. It was, like, above my pay grade, the language to discuss what was going on. I needed some space from certain experiences to actually be able to write from a place of clarity.”

Ahead of the release of “Odin St,” Weaver discussed where she’s been, and where she finally hopes to go next. (Ed. note: this interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.)

Where did “Odin St” come from?

Chronologically, the song is where The Fool ended. [The album’s final song, “New Constellations”] ends, “You can run, if you want to.” I think it’s pretty clear that I left my label — I asked to be released — and so I moved to L.A., across the country, and my manager picked out a place for me to stay. It was on Odin Street in Los Angeles, and I didn’t know the lore of Odin at that time, but it was this safe haven, bunker, Grey Gardens situation. I hid there, I guess, and waited for some dust to settle. 

And then later, thinking about the lore of Odin, I just love that he’s the god of wisdom, and he represents people who are willing to give up everything on their journey for their acquisition of wisdom. I felt like that was such a poem in and of itself — being on Odin Street, and knowing that was my journey, but it’s a very long journey to actually acquiring wisdom. It was also the inverse — I was making the first step, but in reality, I was partying, and hiding, and I was with someone I shouldn’t have been with. And so it was kind of this house down the road from wisdom.

When did you start piecing the actual song together?

I think I started an idea for it like three years later, and then I scrapped that. And then I went in with [producer-songwriter] Active Child, and we started something – but it was almost too joyful in a way, too romantic. I started the verse there, and then we didn’t see each other through COVID. And then I was writing with a guy named Constantine, whose artist project is Blonder, and we were writing for a young artist that my friend was managing, in the desert. We got on very well, and we got back home and were talking about working together. He has this very interesting dark guitar tone. 

We hung out all night, and I think it was 7:00 AM when we started writing it. Funny enough, the song is in the key that it’s in because of my throat — I was like, “It’s 7:00 AM, this is where I can sing this song.” And we even tried to change it a couple times, but key characteristics are so important. We lifted it a half [key], and then it sounded like a jingle. I was like, “We’re keeping it where it is, because it’s dark, and it’s gritty.”

“Odin St” has been rumored to come out for a few years now. Why was now the right time?

For my fans, I love the idea of putting something out on the 10-year for The Fool. We never did a re-pressing — we did one pressing, and people constantly ask me, “Can I get a record?” I don’t have any! But this song is literally where I left you, and it’s a darker color palette. I like that it’s lower — I wasn’t really encouraged to sing in a lower register on the first record. So this is also kind of a break-free moment, of I can do whatever I want. And I also just think it’s a foray into a darker new chapter, while still being light enough.

How close was this moment to happening in the past? Were there starts and stops?

There were so many starts and stops.  There have been three separate times I was getting ready, and there were different songs, too. There was one that I was like, “I feel like that’s the wrong story to start with.” I would get close, and then pull back. I’ve had to get to a point of regaining a lot of self-trust, because working with super-producers and then leaving — you have a splash like that, and then you’re coming back, and there’s this feeling like, “This is different.” So I think I was scared.  

I was never lying to anyone. I always thought I would release something, but then the logistics of it come into play. It costs money. I don’t want to give away my power and immediately sign somewhere. Maintaining autonomy was also important to me. I think, at this moment in time, I am able to do that.

Was co-writing for other artists, or serving as a guest vocalist, ever a lane you considered?

I’ve written for other people — I wrote for SAINt JHN and SZA, and I did something for BTS. I’ve had a lot of random, lucky cuts. If you take this much time off — I’m not connected in the industry through family, I don’t have a giant trust fund or anything. I felt like the universe was protecting me, being like, “Here’s this Head and the Heart song, you can keep going.” That was also a really nice way to pull back and de-center myself, especially while I was pulling back the arrow and deciding what this new chapter would look like.

I turned down a couple really big features at the time, but I think it was because I wanted to establish myself as an artist with my voice. The music industry has changed, but at the time, I felt there was a bit of a trap in being a features artist. I really wanted for my first big feature for everyone to be like, “Oh, damn, they’re working together!,” not, “Who the f–k is that?” I was pretty stubborn about wanting to continue to develop my own voice to where it feels like, that is a worthy collaboration, instead of being thrown onto something. I was maybe a little cagey, but I stand by that decision.

Around the release of The Fool, you were all over social media and constantly online. And then you took a step back for a long time.

Well at the time, I wasn’t releasing — I don’t know how many selfies or how much content the world really needs. But also, I started seeing someone who’s wonderful, and who doesn’t have social media. And I was like, “Wow, I want to do that for a minute.” It was like, what am I trying to get here? Am I going to post a snippet? Am I going to react or bandwagon? I was like, “They don’t need me right now. Open up the stage for the people they need right now.” 

I’ve been onstage my whole life, since I was four, and was a bit of an overachiever in that sense. I was performing professionally at events, and singing for sports games, and then I was the lead in plays, and I was in bands, and then I got into [NYU], and then I dropped out of school, and then I met Benny, and everything was just like, good, good, good, good. And I didn’t understand myself outside of the context of other people, and my value was heavily tied to my ability to entertain or perform. 

I think the time off has been really transformative, in the sense that you really do have to find what your intrinsic value is. That was a very painful process. And this is the longest I’ve not been onstage in my life, but it was so crucial to my general development. So I think you have a couple of little ego deaths in there, where you don’t need to fight for attention.

So what were your areas of interest while you were detached? Did you pick up new hobbies?

I traveled a bit. I’ve gone on weird hiking road trips. I got a sewing machine. I got back into painting. I hung out with my friends and my family a lot. I was a good cat mom. I go dancing, I exercise, I swim in the sea. I was living my life! I do have to acknowledge screens — it’s a very depressing truth that we all binge more than we want to, and we all are on our phones more than we want to be, and I’m trying not to do that, but sometimes my nights are that. I was a bartender for a second. I’ve been in therapy. I’m doing what anybody else is doing.

Did you ever consider leaving music altogether?

I did, but I didn’t. You can talk yourself in and out of everything — I was like, “Maybe I’ll go to school and study semiotics! I’ll go write a book!” Or I was like, “Maybe the industry is too toxic!” I was in a very different industry, pre-MeToo, and women were pitted against each other in different ways. There was a little bit of seeing how the sausage was made, and being there, the industry felt strange. 

More for the drama of it, I was like, “Maybe I’ll leave.” And I had enough reasons to, and most people would have. But I think I always had that thing that was like, “It’ll be next year.” It was more prolonging the [return], and never like I was actually going to pivot.

When you did check in with the rest of the world, how meaningful was it to read fan messages asking about a comeback or hoping you were working on new music?

Super meaningful, and also heartbreaking. You take this much time off, some of it is trying to find your next perfect-match collaborator. You’ll do some of the speed dating, and someone will want to do “OctaHate 2.0,” when you’re trying to transform. So sometimes I’d get those messages, and especially when I felt so far away from releasing, I was like, “I want to be there too. I’m figuring it out.” But it also kept me going, knowing that I had such a strong fan base and people that really love me. I also kept in touch with so many of them.

I had isolated for a long time, and became sort of hermetic. I like that side of myself, but I also need people. It’s like in the Peter Pan play, where Tinker Bell starts dying and needs everyone in the audience to say, “I do believe in fairies, I do, I do,” to survive. When you’re out of the public eye, and you don’t know how necessary what you have to say is at all — having people being like, “We believe, we care, we’ll listen,” that matters.

How does it feel to be on the precipice of releasing new music?

I feel really calm, in a way. I think I was so frantic with “OctaHate” — it was one of those releases where it was like, “We’re just gonna put this out today!” “Oh, we are?” It was horrifying. I threw up that day. I was like, “Oh God, this is happening.” But I’ve waited so long now that I feel ready to go. 

We have a couple more songs coming down the pipeline, and then I think we’re going to do an announcement for… other stuff. But as of now, I just want to focus on this. I’m also actively in EMDR, which is really cool. I’m really preparing myself to come back to the industry from every angle, and feel really like secure and stable coming back. So it’s like, a nice summer, getting me ready to to do the damn thing.

Are you thinking about playing shows?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s kind of my favorite part of it. I love writing, but being onstage in that communal heartbeat thing — where someone can be attached to the work for a completely different reason [than someone else], but everyone’s singing it at each other — it’s just this electricity. 

I remember before I first went on tour, I was doing radio promo and all this stuff that made me feel disconnected from what I was doing. And as soon as I went on tour, I was like, “Oh my God, this is it — I’m a road dog, I am a sailor.” I grew up doing theater, show after show, and it’s always different. And getting to interact with people, hanging with them after the show — I had people coming on the bus and doing shots with me, and it was just so fun and free. I will be a better girl this time! I mean, you can only pull that off at 22. But, yeah, that’s the best part of it, to me.

What do you expect to feel when you return to the stage and start performing songs from The Fool?

I mean, hopefully no one is the same person as they were a decade ago. I want to say something in defense of The Fool, though. I feel there was a while where I couldn’t listen to it — almost like, “What was that? Oh, my God.” There’s a lot of things that I was embarrassed about when I was younger, like doing theater and this and that. But to me, they’re like, these beautiful baby pictures. And I was just so brave and young, and there was no thought about anything, other than “I only have this many days to write an album, so I’m gonna do it.” And it was high-pressure, high-stakes. I was living a very exciting life. And I just have so much love for that album. 

I’m sure we’ll reimagine some of the instrumentation, but for some of them, we won’t. It’s a chapter that literally gave me the ability to be talking to you right now, and gave me the ability to have fans and have opportunities. I re-listen to it now, and not to toot our horn, but with Benny and Michael and me, it was a sound that’s got legs, and it feels timeless. The songs are strange, but still big. And I feel like that is the way I write. 

I do feel like these two albums are going to be companion pieces — the first one is very bold and bright, and there’s a lot of darkness in what I wrote, even if the energy isn’t. And the newer stuff is a bit of a photo negative. Different colors, but it’s not like I’m not a romantic, theatrical, intense person still. I’ve just matured.

Justin Bieber has heard all the comments from fans who are worried about his health and well-being, as well as those offering him advice on how to live his life. “People keep telling me to heal,” Bieber wrote on Monday morning (June 16) in a post cued to WizKid’s “Blessed.”

“Don’t you think if I could have fixed myself I would have already? I know I’m broken. I know I have anger issues,” the singer added. “I tried to do the work my whole life to be like the people who told me I needed to be fixed like them. And it just keeps making me more tired and more angry. The harder I try to grow, the more focussed on myself I am.”

The singer concluded by writing, “Jesus is the only person who keeps me wanting to make my life about others. Because honestly I’m exhausted with thinking about myself lately aren’t you?” The post came just hours after the singer shared an image of what appeared to be his hand holding a burning blunt, as well as what appeared to be a back and forth with what appeared to be a now-former friend.

“I will never suppress my emotions for someone. Conflict is a part of relationship. If you don’t like my anger you don’t like me,” he wrote. “My anger is a response To pain I have been thru. Asking a traumatized person not to be traumatized is simply mean.”

The conversation then got heated when the unidentified other person responded that they were “not used to someone lashing out at me. It’s not hat I don’t see and feel your anger.” Bieber was non-plussed, quickly calling an end to their relationship. “Ouch. This friendship is officially over,” he wrote. “I will never accept a man calling my anger lashing out. I enjoyed our short lived relationship. I wasn’t kidding when I told u I didn’t need u as a friend. I have good friends. Who will respect these boundaries.”

The singer then got testy, telling the person he always considered them a “p–sy… which is why I alway kept my distance but I was willing to give you the benifit [sic] of the doubt. This confirms u were the p–sy I always thought u were [middle finger emoji].”

He ended by asking the person to leave him alone, noting that he is now blocking them. At press time a spokesperson for Bieber had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on the posts.

Bieber has been on a posting spree lately, bouncing between cryptic images and close-up selfies, brief glimpses of the back of his and wife Hailey Biebers’ infant son, Jack Blues, and serious posts in which he lashes out at unsolicited advice. “Telling other humans they deserve something is like raising someone else’s kids,” he wrote on June 3. “Who are you to tell someone what someone should or shouldn’t have. The audacity. That’s not your place. God decides what we deserve.”

Back in March, Bieber sparked concern when he told fans he felt like he was “drowning” in “hate” and struggling with feeling “unworthy.” Bieber has been largely off the music radar since canceling a tour in 2022 to deal with the effects of Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which included partial facial paralysis. He appears to be working on the follow-up to his 2021 album Justice, but at press time on additional information was available on that project.

Check out Bieber’s post below.

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