Justin Bieber: Never Say Never Page #3

"Where'd that come from?"

He's like, "People like my stuff."

I'd just come back

from a night out with friends.

Went online

and I saw this little 12-year-old

singing Aretha Franklin, Respect,

and thought, "That's pretty good."

And there was another one.

There were about six videos.

So I click on another one.

Click on another one.

And then I clicked on him

singing Ne-Yo, So Sick.

That's when I got the buzz.

I actually canceled all my meetings

the next day,

and said, i'm gonna find this kid today.

I kind of became obsessed with him-

I remember getting a message

on YouTube.

I had a call from my friend saying,

"There's this guy named Scooter Braun

"trying to reach you."

He got a hold of Justin's great-aunt,

got a hold of the school board.

He contacted the Avon Theater.

I was like, "Who is this guy?"

I just went to a computer phone

and called him

from an unknown number

just to say, "Please, stop calling."

"Hi, it's Pattie Mallette.

You were calling about my son, Justin?"

You know, she thought she was gonna

have a phone call to get rid of me.

And we ended up talking

for about two to three hours.

He said, "Come to Atlanta for a week,

no strings attached,

"and I'll just introduce you

to a bunch of people,

"let you know I'm for real.

"And if you don't like it,

you don't want to sign with us,

"you get a free vacation out of it,

and, you know, back to life as usual."

So, I pick Justin up from the airport,

and I had a purple Mercedes with rims.

Justin saw it, his eyes got real big

and he's like, "Sweet car."

I told Justin,

"Do you want to meet Jermaine Dupri?"

And he goes,

"The guy who does Grillz with Nelly?"

We pull up to the studio

and we all get out,

and as we're about to walk in

this Range Rover pulls up,

and Usher gets out.

And Justin,

he really, really looked up to Usher

I'm like, "Justin, don't say a word."

Justin just freaks out. "Oh, my God,

is that Usher? Is that Usher?"

He's, like, losing his mind.

And he goes running right up to Usher

and he goes,

"Man, I'm one of your biggest fans.

Can I sing one of your songs to you?"

And I look at this kid like,

"l just picked you up.

I just told you not to do this."

Usher looks at him and he thought

he was, like, my little cousin.

He goes, "it's cold outside, buddy.

Don't worry about it."

He pushes him aside,

and Usher goes into the studio

and he starts his session.

And I look at Justin, I was like,

"l just told you not to sing for anybody."

And he goes,

"You said not to sing for Jermaine.

"You didn't say anything about Usher."

At the time, Scooter didn't have

a whole lot of experience.

But he was so confident in Justin,

we started making plans to go forward.

I kept flying him back and forth.

We were doing all these meetings.

And everyone started saying no.

Every label said,

"There's no platform for him."

"You need Nickelodeon or Disney.

You need the machine."

Do you guys read the stats

that kids are spending

more time on the Internet

than they are watching TV?

And the place where they're watching

most of their videos is You Tube.

It was the most frustrating thing

in the entire world.

I started thinking,

who would be the perfect person?

You're gonna sing with me or what?

Okay, then. All right.

- Your friends will believe you now.

- Yeah.

I said, "This is like a no-brainer."

So now Usher is shocked.

And he looks at me and he goes,

"Who is this kid?"

And Justin kind of has

a smile on his face.

"You don't remember me?

You blew me off

"outside of Jermaine Dupri's studio."

And Usher was like, "Okay."

I said, "l really feel like

you have something incredible.

"But I think that

we should take it to L.A. Reid."

Justin was excited 'cause he knew

this was the guy who had signed

Pink, Avril Lavigne, Outkast, Usher

and so many others.

And he said, "Yeah, at the Grammys,

"I've heard people thank him

many times."

My first impression was,

"Wow, the Macaulay Culkin of music."

That was the first thing

I thought in my head.

He came in and he soaked up

all the air in the room.

And he sang really well.

But it wasn't even that.

It was the face.

It was the hair. He was brave-

When it was all said and done,

I was beyond convinced

that Usher had

absolutely delivered a gift.

He was in grade eight,

it was about halfway through the year

He came and he said,

"Mrs. Booker, I'm talking with Usher."

And I said, "Great

But I really don't know who Usher is."

We're going to pull Justin.

Justin didn't know this.

But, Justin, you were in the studio.

Come on over here. He's a good-looking

14-year-old young man.

- Have a seat right next to your mom.

- Hey, honey.

And he sounds even better

than he looks.

- He does.

- What a voice.

Pattie, tell us a bit about

what's happening now in Justin's life.

This is hot off the presses.

We just signed with a music label

and we're moving in

about a week to the US.

So it's a big step, and he's got

a long journey and great plans.

Congratulations, Justin and Pattie.

They were excited to go.

We were a little leery at them going,

but we were excited for them to go, too.

I mean, once they walked through

that gate at the airport, it's...

That's the end of it. They're gone.

There are moments

that you come across all your life.

There's always that moment

when you have to let go.

And that was one of them.

I moved him down to Atlanta

on my own dime.

ATL, shawty!

It was summertime.

He wasn't going to school.

He didn't have any friends.

I called the label and said,

"Let's make some moves."

And they were mad at me.

"What do you mean, you spent money?

We're not ready."

Done.

If it was up to them, we'd have come out

with Justin when he was 28 years old.

I can grow facial hair really easily.

I was coming in to help them

get acclimated to being in Atlanta.

Look, I grew a mustache.

I remember he used to ask me,

"When am I gonna get in the studio?

We're just sitting around."

Justin was looking at me,

"When are we gonna do something?"

I was like, "That's it. I'm with the kid."

That's when they called me in.

In addition to singing, Justin also plays

drums, guitar keyboards and trumpet.

He's currently being managed by

Usher and Scooter Braun.

I met Justin in December 2008.

Scooter and Usher both know me and

they decided that it was a good thing

to bring Justin in to work with me

ahead of time, prior to the recording,

just to get some basics underneath him.

Tonight he'll be singing an original tune

entitled Common Denominator.

Here 's Justin Bieber.

I'm not five years old.

They started a bit too early.

Can you start it oven please?

So, we started.

We started cutting records in Atlanta.

We started working with different

people and trying different things.

I didn't mean to stop you like that,

but this is only a tease.

Ladies and gentlemen,

introducing to you,

Island Def Jam recording artist,

Justin Bieber's

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