Blackbear Is This Month's 'One To Watch' Artist

Born as Matthew Musto, Blackbear is this month’s ‘One To Watch’ artist.

Blackbear is not only a singer, but as a songwriter and producer.  He’s worked alongside other incredible artists such as G-Eazy, Mike Posner, Machine Gun Kelly, Childish Gambino, Pharrell Williams and many more.  Blackbear also co-wrote Justin Bieber’s hit, ‘Boyfriend’ which debuted at the No. 2 spot on the Billboard charts.

Born in Daytona Beach, Florida, Matthew began his career in 2006.  After leaving his high school band, Matthew moved to Atlanta to work alongside R&B singer, Ne-Yo.  It was then that Matthew dropped his very first EP called Brightness.  Brightness was released in 2008 followed by Contrast in 2009 and Exposure in 2010, all EPs.

Then, in 2011, Matthew then changed his name to Blackbear (which was a nickname) and by 2015, Blackbear released his first full-length album, Deadroses.  The lead single called ‘IDFC’ was streamed more than 22.5 million times on Spotify and his second single which features G-Eazy called, 90210 racked up an amazing 9 million streams.  That same year, Blackbear released yet another full-length album called, Help 

The following year, Blackbear along with singer-songwriter, Mike Posner formed the hip hop and R&B duo, Mansionz.  In 2016, Blackbear was diagnosed with necrotic pancreatitis, which he ended up having multiple surgeries and staying in the hospital for a year.  It was in that year Blackbear wrote his next project, Digital Druglord. 

In April of 2017, Digital Druglord was finally released and it featured some of Blackbear’s hits like, ‘Do Re Mi,’ ‘Make Daddy Proud’ and ‘If I Could Feel Nothing.’  Later that year, Blackbear hit the road with Fall Out Boy for their Mania Tour and the video for ‘Do Re Mi’ racked up well over 81 million views on YouTube and a remix with Gucci Mane was released. 

Blackbear also performed at Lollapalooza earlier this month, followed up a sold-out show at House of Blues in the same week.  Blackbear will be performing at the ‘Life Is Beautiful Festival’ going down next month in Las Vegas and will headline Red Rocks Amphitheatre on October 19.

Blackbear has released a brand new single called ‘The 1’, off of his most recent project, a mixtape called Cybersex which dropped last November.  Blackbear is currently working on a new project and is set to be released in 2019.