“But I’m trying to tear the layers back and make it not so contrived. “Marketing is more important than it has ever been,” he says. (There’s a reason he has been in the studio with Skrillex and Diplo.) If Usher is worried about any of this, he’s not letting on. And he could well have a pocket full of them. Then again, his biggest hits, from “Yeah!” to “Climax,” were so unconventional as to rewrite the language of pop. Drake, this decade’s reigning urban-radio loverman, isn’t even a singer, exactly, and makes the more traditional soul-based ballads that Usher is so great at seem even more old-fashioned. The brand of male R&B he mastered isn’t exactly dominating - among the current top 20 singles, only Jeremih and Jason Derulo represent the Usher school. It’s also possible that it’s just not Usher’s exact time anymore. Reid will tell you, it takes two albums to make one with Usher.” “Meaning I have more that I want to say and more that I want to do. This fall, he was supposed to release his eighth album, but unexpectedly - and indefinitely - pushed the record back. Usher’s last album, 2012’s Looking 4 Myself, has sold 504,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan - 800,000 fewer than the one before it, 2010’s Raymond vs. 1 hits to struggling to even score gold records. There’s the existential issue, common to superstar artists in 2014, of making the transition from diamond-certified albums and near-annual No. The hard times aren’t necessarily behind him, although they are perhaps of a less personal nature. Usher’s aunt had been watching them, and the boy was unhurt. (In October 2013, she sued for temporary full custody of their sons after the older child was caught in a pool drain. One is clearly his acrimonious relationship with Foster, who was Usher’s stylist before they married, and now stars on the VH1 reality show Atlanta Exes. Usher often alludes to challenges to overcome, to crises that left him smarter and tougher. “She has helped me through some of the hardest times in my life and my career.” “I have an incredible partner and manager,” says Usher. When he’s not with them, he spends most of his time with his manager - girlfriend Grace Miguel, who, at 44, is eight years older than Usher and has been part of his career for three years. He won primary custody of them when he divorced their mother, Tameka Foster, in 2009, after two years of marriage. Usher lives in Atlanta with his sons Usher V, age 6, and Naviyd Ely, 5. See more Happy Birthday, Usher: 10 Most Stylish Moments Or, as Usher describes these things: “I get to see life through rose-colored glasses a lot of the time.” Then he laughs. (Just to be clear: Last season, Usher did not lobby his buddy LeBron James to come home, because that would be against NBA rules.) He has played the Super Bowl and Michael Jackson’s funeral, and discovered Justin Bieber, provided him with the Usher playbook and set him loose upon the world. He has a profitable perfume line and owns a small piece of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. He has acted on Broadway ( Chicago in 2006), starred in movies (he’ll play Sugar Ray Leonard opposite Robert De Niro in the forthcoming Hands of Stone) and coached two seasons on NBC’s The Voice, winning the second time around. Robin Thicke on Cutting His Hair After First Radio Single, Turning a Bank Robbery Into a Song and Writing for Michael JacksonĪnd why not? During a two-decade career, Usher, 36, has sold nearly 24 million records in the United States alone, won eight Grammy Awards and, with 2004’s Confessions, scored the top-selling album of the 2000s.
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