Justin Timberlake’s Two-Year-Old Son Silas Makes His Recording Debut on ‘Man of the Woods’
Man of the Woods isn't just one of Justin Timberlake's most personal albums to date: it's a full-fledged family affair.
During a track-by-track interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 Thursday (February 1), Timberlake revealed that his son Silas, for which the record is titled (Silas means "man of the woods" in Latin), earns his first recording credit on the album.
The two-year-old, who was born in April 2015, is the subject of Timberlake's song "Young Man," which includes Silas cooing "da-da" for one of the first times ever, as well as telling his father, "I love you." (Editor's note: D'awwwww...)
"The top of the song was one of the first handful of times I caught him saying 'da-da' and he was just a little over four months old," Timberlake told Lowe.
"It was really incredible," he gushed. "Then at the end of the record, I was at the studio...and [Jessica and Silas] were singing 'Happy Birthday' to me because I was working on my birthday at the studio, and at the end he just says, 'I love you,' and it’s one of those things that you're like, you know.
"I always knew I wanted to write a song for him, but I didn't know it was going to be a song to him. You know it really turned out to be like if I was going to write him a letter...this was just my love letter to him that I felt like maybe this is something he can have as sort of a time capsule," the pop star added.
Silas isn't the first toddler-aged celebrity offspring to make his/her music career debut on their parent's album: Jay-Z and Beyonce's daughter Blue Ivy appears on her dad's 2012 song "Glory" among others, and DJ Khaled credits his son, Asahd, for helping produce his album Grateful.
In addition to Silas' cameo on Man of the Woods, Timberlake's wife, Jessica Biel, also gets her own moment. The album's titular track is a "love letter dedicated to [Jessica]," the singer says.
The song dedications make sense: On an early album teaser, Timberlake shared that the "album is really inspired by my son, my wife, my family."