Justin Timberlake Teases New Music: “I’ve Been Chef-ing”

It’s been a little over a year since Justin Timberlake wrapped his Forget Tomorrow world tour, promoting his sixth solo album Everything I Thought It Was, released in 2024, but he’s already cooking up something new. The Grammy- and Emmy-winning singer said he’s “been working” in Miami and hinted at new music, particularly in the form of collaborations with Pharrell Williams, Quavo, Don Toliver and Timbaland. “I think it’s safe to say y’all saw me on a boat with Que and P. Tim[baland] and I are always locked in. From scratch. Just want to say that, for the record, from scratch. I don’t want to hear any of that talk,” he said in an episode of Complex‘s Re-Rank video series, seemingly taking a shot at AI. “We’ll see, but I’m really excited about … I’ve been chef-ing. All in due time.” In the video, where Timberlake revisited some of his most beloved songs, he spoke at length specifically about working with Toliver, explaining how his son played a role in his “easy decision” to clear a “Rock Your Body” sample for Toliver’s “Body.” “As soon as I heard it, I was like, yeah, of course,” Timberlake said. “My 11-year-old, Silas, Don Toliver, that’s his guy, I remember asking him… and he was like, ‘You gotta do it.’ So that was an easy yes. I also really love that whole album.” Timberlake attended Toliver’s Miami concert at the Kaseya Center, mostly to see if the show was suitable for his son, but he also hopped up onstage for a quick performance and then got to work with Toliver after the show. “I was like, ‘Don’t you have a studio on the road?’” he said. “He was like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Alright, cool. Take a shower. Let’s work.’ So we stayed at the arena for, like, a couple hours. I don’t know. And we did a few ideas. So, who knows?” Amid the 20th anniversary this year of his hit sophomore album FutureSex/LoveSounds, Timberlake also recalled how his label was initially resistant to that record’s ubiquitous first single, “SexyBack.” “When people heard this song for the first time, I didn’t want them to know it was me. I wanted it to sound almost androgynous in a way, where if you were singing along to it, you were that person,” he said. “And when I brought it to the label, they were like, ‘This is not gonna work. You don’t sound like you. It’s too fast. Nothing on the radio right now is 118 BPM.’” He added, “And every reason that they gave me that it wasn’t going to work is the reason that I thought it would… It was personally an experience of trusting your gut and doing something so decidedly different. It kind of changed everything.” “SexyBack” ended up spending seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and won a Grammy for best dance recording in 2007. Timberlake and wife Jessica Biel have also been in the kitchen, joining protein beverage brand Proda as co-founders.