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Justin Timberlake hilariously surprises airline passengers by getting on the overhead speaker

"It's gonna be lit."

Images via Canva and Wikicommons

Justin Timberlake was ready to make every seat first class

Imagine you're on a flight to Argentina, getting settled into your seat and preparing for a boring (albeit important) safety rule announcement. Suddenly, a familiar voice pops up on the overhead speakers and you think… "Wait… that's not… could that be?" Why yes, it isJustin Timberlake, and he's ready to give you safety instructions and the flight route, usually delivered by the pilot.

Timberlake is continuing his "The Forget Tomorrow World Tour", his first world tour in five years. Of course, he's playing lots of hits, but the tour is to support his latest album Everything I Thought it Was, his sixth studio record.

On Justin's TikTok, posted on March 19th, we see him clad in a mint green hoodie with splashes of orange and darker green print, baggy trousers, and sneakers. He takes to the flight attendant's interphone with a sheet of instructions and begins: "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to JT Live South American Leg."

@justintimberlake

South America, we’re coming for you!

The phone camera pans to the somewhat attentive, though possibly confused, rows of passengers and a flash of his name on the back of a seat. He continues while the flight attendants demonstrate how to use the life jackets, "The lifejacket is located in the pouch at the side of your seat. To inflate the lifejacket, pull firmly on the red toggles. If you have any questions, please keep them to yourselves."

This gets only a small laugh, so he verifies, "Oh, we're just kidding. Please ask the crew."

He then proceeds to share the flight path. "We will be flying over the beautiful countries of the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, until we make our way into Argentina." Adding, "We thank you for flying JT Live 25 Air — it’s gonna be lit."

This is met by clapping and cheers from many passengers, though others remain seemingly disinterested.

The TikTok comments, however, were filled with true fans. "You know what? There's nothing he can't do," says one. Another exclaims, "I'd give anything to be on that plane with him."

And this person hopes it means that Justin is adding something new to his already full career plate: "OK, so this is a preview of you narrating audiobooks for us, am I right? Please say I’m right!"

But there's more. Whether the reactions were good or indifferent on the actual flight didn't stop Justin from having a blast. At one point, he decides to use the aisle as his own personal putting green. With his putter, he gently hits a golf ball down the aisle, then excitedly takes a back-and-forth victory run, high-fiving some people on the way.

This was also shared on Justin's TikTok, underscored by a recording of the "Better than Most" PGA commentary when Tiger Woods famously made a 60-foot putt at TPC Sawgrass.

@justintimberlake

We love you, Big 🐅!!! Get well soon!

We hear, "I have seen a number of players putt from the back of this green. And the results have not been good." Justin takes the shot, then runs the aisle, and we hear, "Well, that's better than most. Better than most! You could hit that putt 50 times, and maybe make it once."

Adam Sandler Golf GIFGiphy

Again, the comment section blew up. "Imagine tryna nap on your flight and wake up to JT playing golf." And yet another suggestion for Justin's career? "JT needs to make a Happy Gilmore 2 cameo!"

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Pop Culture

Paralyzed musicians create beautiful sounds once again—using nothing but their brainwaves

The talent is still in their minds.

Canva

A string quartet that needs no instruments

Imagine seeing a string quartet play beautiful music.

Strings are pretty much my favorite kind of instrument; it's hard for me to listen to a cello or violin and not feel something. And when you get four musicians all playing together? Beautiful.

In 2015, Plymouth University's Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research and the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in London teamed up to create a spectacular string quartet.

But this wasn't your typical performance.

The musicians in this quartet all had severe motor impairments, which can affect a person's ability to move.

Motor impairments can be caused by a number of different things, such as a motor neuron disease like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). In severe cases, a person may not be able to move or speak at all.

For musicians like these folks, their condition would normally present a considerable barrier to being able to play music like they once did. But in this case, researchers and doctors found a way to let them play anyway.

The thought was this: If the musicians still have musical talent but simply can't do the physical motions, we'll just make it so they don't need to do any physical motions.

science, music, research, real-time

Researchers place device on the head of musician.

Image pulled from YouTube video

First, researchers put stretchy, cap-like devices that can read brainwaves on the musician's heads.

Then, during the performance, a computer screen presented the four musicians with selections of short different musical phrases.

The musicians could choose what phrase they wanted by simply looking at it. The caps then picked up these brainwaves and sent the information to four other, nearby musicians who played the music for them (so, technically, maybe this would be an octet).

The end result was brilliant — four motor-impaired musicians, picking and playing in real-time to create beautiful music, all with their brainwaves.

One of their performances was captured in this short, nine-minute documentary by Tim Grabham and professor Eduardo Reck Miranda, who spearheaded the project.

Check out their brilliant performance here:

Brain-computer interfaces have gotten us this far and are taking us further still.

We've already seen brain-computer interfaces that can help us control prosthetic arms with thoughts and restore senses of hearing and touch to folks without them.

There's a lot more work to be done in these fields, of course, but one day soon, we might be hearing, seeing, and visiting a lot more performances and projects like this.

This article originally appeared on 10.25.16

science
Pop Culture

Pink shares a proud mama video of her daughter's first singing recital

'This 11 year old (11,000 year old soul) blows me away.'

slgckgc/flickr

Pink's daughter is following in her mom's footsteps with her own unique voice.

One of the best things social media offers is the ability for parents to share some of their kids' big moments. Proud parents are going to proud parent, and modern technology gives us ample opportunity to publicly gush about our offspring without forcing anyone to bear witness to their burgeoning talents.

Celebrity parents are in a bit of a different boat, however. When you're a household name with millions of followers, you might think twice about sharing your proud parent videos. But iconic pop star Pink has shared a video of her daughter's first singing recital just like any other proud mama would, and it's totally sweet.

Pink posted the video to an Instagram reel with the caption "This 11 year old (11,000 year old soul) blows me away."

Pink's daughter Willow can be seen standing on a stage holding a microphone with a purple curtain behind her. A Christmas tree sits on stage to her left and a piano to her right. The piano accompaniment begins, and she begins to sing "The Rose Song" by Olivia Rodrigo.

Imagine being the child of one of the best singers in modern times and wanting to be a singer yourself. It would be so hard not to feel a huge amount of pressure or feel like people are going to expect you to sound like your mom.

But Willow's voice is sweet and unique. She doesn't sound that much like Pink, but her performance shows the apple doesn't fall far from the tree nonetheless.

Watch:

It takes a lot of courage to stand on stage alone and sing, no matter how talented you are. So kudos to Willow for that alone.

But people are loving the performance itself, the way she connects emotionally with the song and how she keeps control of her voice. Even some other famous singers weighed in with praise for the 11-year-old.

"Holy cow!!! What a voice! What composure. Superstar," wrote singer and actress Mandy Moore.

"Whoah Nelly!" wrote Nancy Wilson from Heart. "They’ll be no stopping her!"

Chrissy Metz of "This Is Us" fame shared a simple, emoji-filled "Wow."

The video has thousands of comments from supportive fans, of course, but as any parent knows, the pride that comes with watching your child succeed at what they set out to do doesn't require any fanfare. Pink's sharing of her daughter's recital comes from the same urge most parents have to celebrate our kids' achievements and encourage them in their endeavors. (Did you notice the camera starting to slip up and up before coming back down? A sure sign of a parent trying to balance recording on a phone while watching the performance. Classic.)

It's especially sweet to see this proud mama moment from Pink, as she's previously shared that she never had an urge to be a mom.

"It surprised me. I didn't really want to be a mom," she told Carson Daly on Today last year. "I didn't not not want to be a mom, but it just wasn't sort of on my list of to-dos. I had Willow and, man, that saying of watching your heart go walking outside of your body, it's truly how it feels."

Indeed it is. Congrats to Willow on a beautiful recital and congrats to Pink for raising such a talented, self-composed young lady.

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Heroes

This a capella version of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' will knock your socks off

Yebba Smith/Instagram

Simon & Garfunkel's song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" has been covered by more than 50 different musical artists, from Aretha Franklin to Elvis Presley to Willie Nelson. It's a timeless classic that taps into the universal struggle of feeling down and the comfort of having someone to lift us up. It's beloved for its soothing melody and cathartic lyrics, and after a year of pandemic challenges, it's perhaps more poignant now than ever.

A few years a go, American singer-songwriter Yebba Smith shared a solo a capella version of a part of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," in which she just casually sits and sings it on a bed. It's an impressive rendition on its own, highlighting Yebba's soulful, effortless voice.

But British singer Jacob Collier recently added his own layered harmony tracks to it, taking the performance to a whole other level.

Be ready, because PHEW.

If you're unfamiliar with either of both these singers, here's a little background.

Yebba is a singer-songwriter from West Memphis, Arkansas who has collaborated with various artists including Chance the Rapper, Ed Sheeran, Stormzy, and Sam Smith. She's released a few singles of her own over the past few years, and in 2019 won a Grammy alongside PJ Morton for Best Traditional R&B Performance with the song "How Deep Is Your Love."

"Yebba" is her stage name—a backwards play on her real name, Abbey Smith.

Her debut single, "My Mind" was written and performed shortly before her mom died of suicide in 2016. After that, the lyrics of the song took on a whole new significance. The powerful performance of the piece at SoFar NYC shows off Yebba's vocal range as well as her emotive style of singing.

YEBBA - My Mind | Sofar NYCwww.youtube.com

Jacob Collier, on the other hand, is a British musician who rose to fame through split-screen self-harmonizing videos he shared online. In 2012, his cover of Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" went viral on YouTube, and Collier was subsequently signed by Quincy Jones' record label. He has since been nominated for seven Grammy awards and won five of them. He's the first British artist to win a Grammy for each of his first four albums.

Collier—who has been referred to as "a musical force of nature" can play a wide range of musical instruments and often serves as his own one-man band. But his NPR Tiny Desk Concert with back-up vocals and instrumentalists is a delight. (It gets particularly fun at the 12:30 mark.)

Jacob Collier: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concertwww.youtube.com

Two impressive musical artists casually pulling together a soul-stirring performance of a much-beloved classic like "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is just the kind of entertainment we need after a year of collective trauma and hardship. Music is healing, creativity is healing, human connection is healing, and all three of those things came together beautifully in this brief video. (Anyone else wishing it didn't cut off? I don't think there's a longer version anywhere, since Yebba's original solo version wasn't a complete video either. I think it's time to demand a full recorded version, please and thank you.)

Yebba pretty much summed up here how we're all feeling after watching them sing:

You can find more of Yebba's music here and Jacob Collier's music here.

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