Justin Timberlake is revving up the pop machine. Just days after wiping his Instagram and getting fans excited about a potential new music era, the singer announced a one-night-only hometown show in Memphis slated for Jan. 19 at the 2,300-capacity Orpheum Theater. “Going home,” Timberlake wrote in an Insta post announcing the gig, which featured a picture of a billboard with the show details.
The next slide featured a pre-teen JT in a throwback video, saying, “this is where I come from… this is the Mississippi River and that is Memphis, Tennessee.” The slideshow also included what looked like an itinerary — with all the other items redacted — that included “travel to Memphis Jan. 19 – Orpheum” on his to-do list.
The final slide was an audio file of a mid-tempo, organ driven song snippet that cuts off just as the singer is about to start his vocals.
Timberlake amped up speculation that he’s about to announce the long-awaited follow-up to his musky 2018 Man of the Woods album on Monday when fans noticed that he’d erased all the posts on his Instagram save for his profile picture, which featured a shot of his eyes looking back through a car’s rearview mirror. At present, the show announcement is the only post on JT’s Insta.
The clean-sweep social strategy that has been employed by a number of fellow pop stars lately in advance of albums or big project announcements — including by Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa — amped up speculation about JT6.
At press time Timberlake had not announced any new music, but back in April 2023 longtime collaborator Timbaland teased that “fun” JT was coming back with a “bob-your-head” album. After some time out of the spotlight, Timberlake reunited with his former *NSYNC bandmates last fall for their first song in more than 20 years, the Trolls Band Together single “Better Place.” Then, in November he popped up on a remix of BTS member Jung Kook’s solo single, “3D.”
Timberlake closed out his busy 2023 with a surprise concert at the Dec. 13 opening of the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, marking his second performance since his name was in a rash of headlines in the wake of the October release of former girlfriend Britney Spears’ tell-all memoir, The Woman in Me. Timberlake appeared to address Spears before performing “Cry Me a River,” which the “…Baby One More Time” singer said in the book she though JT used as “ammunition” in the 2003 track’s iconic music video. “No disrespect,” Timberlake said to the crowd, before jumping into the song.
“Cry Me a River” — inspired by Timberlake’s breakup with Spears — was released as the second single from JT’s debut solo album, Justified, and the video finds JT breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home and features a Britney look-alike portraying his former flame.
Check out Timberlake’s announcement below.
