Nobody Beats the Biebs

Earn (Donald Glover) and Alfred (Brian Tyree Henry) attend a youth charity event, where Alfred is set to play basketball along with other celebrities. Alfred approaches reporter Valencia Joyner (Paloma Guzman) for an interview, but she is not interested in him, deeming him part of "gangster things", which seems to upset him.

Suddenly, Justin Bieber arrives, and his presence annoys Alfred. He is more disgusted when Bieber only acknowledges him for the shooting incident and even gets an interview with Joyner, with Bieber making crude comments. He also sees Bieber urinating in a hallway just as the game is about to start, with the other celebrities not caring. As Earn leaves to find a seat, he is approached by a woman named Janice (Jane Adams), who mistakes him for a person named Alonzo. While he initially tries to explain the situation, he ends up going with her to an agents meeting in the stadium.

Meanwhile, Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) goes to a shooting range to try a gun. However, people are astounded to find that he used the silhouette of a dog as his shooting target. Two men tell Darius to drop the dog silhouette, but Darius remarks that they are angry for targeting dogs while they use human targets. Two Muslims defend Darius and call out the white men for expressing their racism with their targets, although Darius wants to avoid trouble when the situation grows hostile. The store owner then forces Darius at gunpoint to leave the range, not even allowing him to take his dog target.

At the agents meeting, Earn gets many contacts for Alfred and enjoys the free service. Janice approaches him, talking about her previous encounter with "Alonzo". She then calls him out, as she believes Alonzo forced her out of the company and took her clients, intending to take revenge. As she leaves, Earn confesses that he is not Alonzo. Ignoring that, Janice says she will make sure that he "dies homeless". At the basketball game, Alfred and Bieber trade insults on the court. Later, Alfred hits Bieber during the game and both end up fighting. At a press conference, Bieber apologizes for his "cool" behavior and proceeds to sing a song from his upcoming album. Alfred is dismayed at the public gleefully staring at Bieber and approaches Joyner again for an interview. Joyner states that Alfred should "play his part" as the public wants him to be "the asshole" instead of Bieber due to his rapper status. Earn joins Alfred and they leave the conference.

Justin Bieber (pictured in 2015) is portrayed in the episode as African-American.

The episode presented Justin Bieber as African-American, played by Austin Crute. Thrillist drew comparisons to the series Ray Donovan, which had an episode that raised the question of a "Black Justin Bieber".[2] The Huffington Post viewed the episode as a form of exploring "real Bieber's famous appropriation of black culture as well as Hollywood's habit of whitewashing minority roles" as well as how "America can be so accepting of real-life Bieber's public fallouts and how that is likely a result of his white privilege."[3]

The episode's writer, Stephen Glover, said that he and Donald Glover had the idea for quite some time and compared the episode to the film The Counselor, explaining "it's a really good-looking movie, weird, surreal, and there are things that happen in it that just make you want to watch it. I feel like this episode is kind of like that."[4] He also said that when the producers sent the script for revision with FX, they received an e-mail that read "Um, can we actually get Justin Bieber to do this?" but FX never interfered with the episode's direction.[4]

Jesse David Fox from Vulture compared the episode to the Theatre of the Absurd, writing "in the years to come, people will talk about the best episode of Atlanta or the episode in which it made the jump to a new echelon and the answer will be the same: 'Black Justin Bieber.'" He further said, "Atlanta confronts the cultural perception that black identity is a monolith. Also, it shows us that seeing a black Justin Bieber is funny."[5]

Joshua Alston from The A.V. Club writing, "Bieber's actions are viewed through his status as a white male, and putting a black actor into the role forces the audience to reevaluate Bieber's obnoxious behavior through the lens of someone who wouldn't be granted nearly as much latitude just because of the body he inhabits."[6] Alan Sepinwall commented, "Imagine if the real Bieber behaved the way he always does, and got into the trouble he usually does, only he looked like the actor playing him here, rather than a slightly more androgynous Kate McKinnon? He would not be greeted with the same level of adoration, and his mistakes wouldn't get quite so many 'boys will be boys' excuses."[7] Ashley Ray-Harris from Inverse said, "Since 2014, pop culture has attempted to make the point that Bieber is an 'honorary black person.' This ignores the fact that his whiteness helped him achieve the level of success he's attained, and it allows him to freely appropriate from black culture without being viewed as a gangster or jerk like Alfred."[8]

The episode drew attention in 2021. The final scene of the episode showed Bieber performing a song from his new album, Justice. Many people saw similarities when real-life Bieber announced his new album, Justice, in 2021.[9]

• "Nobody Beats the Biebs" at IMDb