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Justin Bieber Gets Ready For Coachella Set in ‘Speed Demon’ Video

Next year will mark Bieber’s first time as the Saturday headliner across both weekends.

By Precious Fondren
Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Justin Bieber seems to be just as excited for his upcoming Coachella performance as the fans are. The pop star dropped the video for “Speed Demon,” the opening track on his Swag II reissue, and it feels like a love letter to the festival grounds he’s about to headline.

“Shot and cut” by collaborator Rory Kramer, the video is a grainy black-and-white sprint through Indio’s desert playground. Bieber takes center stage in the middle of an empty Coachella field, the famous white tents looming like ghosts on the edges of the horizon. He’s dressed down in shorts and an oversized shirt with “Pray for me” scrawled across the back, prancing and pacing as if he’s already rehearsing for the main stage.

This video is more stripped down, no frills, no distractions. Just Justin teasing a festival moment years in the making. Though he’s performed surprise sets at four past Coachellas, this April will mark his first time as the Saturday headliner across both weekends. And judging from the energy in “Speed Demon,” he’s not taking the spotlight lightly.

If the video feels familiar, it’s because Bieber has been leaning hard on black-and-white aesthetics this era. “Yukon” and “First Place,” both from the first Swag, used the same spare palette. 

Swag II sticks with that approach, though the project itself has received mixed reviews, with some loving it’s more pop-focused sound and others arguing it’s a step back from the creativity that made the first installment hit.

Bieber, for his part, isn’t doing the usual rollout for this run, either: no press blitz, no slew of sit-down interviews. Just visuals, Instagram Story and grid posts, and songs dropped into the world without explanation.