QLS Classic: Usher

Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to QLs Classic Episode twenty four with Persuer May twenty seventeen. He's one of the brightest stars of the post MJ generation and we get to chop it up with Usher about his life growing up in the spotlight, not to mention to the pressures of keeping that light bright. We get confessional about doing it his way. We hope you enjoy Usher QLs Classic.

Thank you, Supremo Supremo. Roll Call, Suprima Supremo. Roll Call, Suprima, Supremo. Roll Suprima, supremos Que.

Yeah, st yeah, l O v E Yeah, roll roll the name. I got so many tricks.

Yeah.

I should have won that oscar for in the mix.

Some real.

Sugar, Sugar Steve. Yeah, this is my confession. Yeah, I love we already that st roll call Supremo Supremo. Role this boss Bill. Yeah, I'm about to have some fun.

Yeah.

I've been away for a while. Yeah, I had to get the guns roll.

Bill.

Yeah, so what's the deal. Yeah, I've been watching The West Wing.

Yeah, it's real Supreme.

Supreme roll Supremo, Supremo roll.

Yeah, I'm already caught up. Yeah, my bo was Usher. Yeah, I don't give a fun.

Supremo roll.

Okay, Suprema, Yeah Supremo. My name is Yeah, I'm here with Team Supreme.

Yeah.

What y'all doing in here? Yeah?

Man, I don't know what the hell.

Oh yeah, Suprema.

So Supremo. Role called Supremo, Supremo roll call Supremo.

Hey, Supremo roll. That was cool. Yes, we made it, We did it. I'll admit that Usher is the first guess, of course Love Supreme to actually have known of the theme before it was unleashed. You know, for those that are wondering about the themes, we never tell our guests what the theme is, like, we just you know, I was.

Trying to think some funny ship to say the whole time, wrote down a whole bunch of shit that I didn't use them.

Like you, just writing words like maybe if I just have a few catch words, it'll just come to me somehow, some way. Some of the best moments of quest Love Supreme is when we mess up. Well, in case you haven't guessed, ladies and gentlemen, uh, in the ongoing tradition of adding members to the roots as if they're not enough uh members already. I think ushers is going to be probably remember number seventeen were still yeah growing out.

I want residuals on everything.

In line with the rest of the roots. Son. No, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome. Friend of the show, uh, friend of the roots, friend of of music, music, Yeah, of music, Usher, Aloisious Raymond the Fourth. What's your middle names? I don't know. I mean, you know, like they're killing they're killing all my Cosby dreams, But I don't know, like Field's middle name, Aloisious Huxtable. Really you didn't know that?

What's what's the symbolic meaning or word that wording?

I don't know. It just means that you put a lot of thought into the middle name if you need.

That's what I mean I'm saying it.

Could it could be like attached somewhere to like the family roots or something.

Well, yeah, if I don't know the person, I'm just saying that you. I mean, you're first of all. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Usher Ring.

We got right, so you said it just as it is.

I don't have a middle name for real. No, I don't have a middle name, Usher, Raymond, the four.

I not know how many people our fourths there you go, let's talk about it, like, yeah, that means you're you're your grant, your whole linears escaped. Hell, I know, I know, yeah, joking, but serious? Who your son is five?

Who was the first usher?

What did he do first? I mean he worked in the theater, I guess.

I don't know theaters back then.

In my mind, I'm like, obviously, no, we all were obviously given names by our slave owners, so you know, or either within the trade of what it is that was significant in that time. So I think that maybe it had something to do with, you know, being a server or something.

I don't know.

But late on that joke, like.

I don't even have a sound effect.

So my entire career, you thought it was a joke, Like my name really wasn't.

No, No, No, I knew Usher was your name, but I didn't think about Usher being a given name and it really being like maybe it was somebody who was the usher in church from back in the day, or we.

Just know they were having church back then.

You know what I'm saying, They're using.

That's how we found Jesus.

Yeah, absolutely so, even though your freestyle on this, I would almost lean towards believing that's.

Probably how that's some truth to it. I don't know.

Yeah, but I become curious within the last two years.

You know what I'm saying, I did I did, like about to say you did, I.

Did the twenty three and me and also to have been doing a lot of you did that? Yeah, why not necessarily with you knowet it. But but the point is just to understand where I come from.

What are you?

I'm West African? We all are, isn't that true? I mean the research that comes back on every person that I've had, like West or either you.

Haven't chosen to look have you?

I have not not yet yet.

That's good because that gives you an opportunity to do something.

The initial I'm scared of giving DNA like it just feels like I feel like I've given DNA.

And opportunity to kill the next I'm kind of fucked up, But but I have looked at it. I'm you got some kids off the books, you know, did.

You give DNA to make money many years ago?

At some point I give DNA I gave plaid.

Yeah, it was real. It was a rough time, but you know I got it back. You know, I got the blood. You got a TV back center. It was real. Bumpings his first album on my Way to the Clinic, Well, yeah, I did that test and uh I found out they told me that both my parents were from Sierra Leon. But I'm gonna I'm gonna do Skip. Gates is one. Uh he had a show on PBS.

I guess Henry Lewis Gates Henry Wow.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, or to.

Just kind of at least have some track. I mean, none of us are, you know, pure blood from Africa. There were a lot of different places that kind of were mentioned in My My Pie Tricks, because there's like a pie trick that they give you and you kind of look and then you can determine, like where you want to go from there with it, Like, say you decide you want to go back to that village, what's the truth?

What's what is? What truth?

Will you find there? Where you find the village that you were originally from. A lot of those places, a lot of the places that we would go, they've now adopted the idea of being modernized and being colonized, so English is now applied. The true tongue of the place is not there. So I'm, if anything, I'm hoping that I'll go back there and there will be some facial features that I could see of.

You know, potential people.

But for the most part, they also to have been mixed so many times that they're not the original.

Right, it's been cut well.

I strongly recommend that you need to cut it. I know this way too well, you need to cut it. I strongly recommend that you contact Henry Lewis Gates because like the level, the thorough level of research they do. You know, I'm gonna like for those who don't know, like, uh, I guess for four or five seasons they were doing like all the black celebrities because of course, you know,

Let's talk about the fact that technology has now allowed us to investigate our own lineage.

And that's good.

You know what I'm saying schools because schools back when I was in high school or middle school or elementary school, we were immigrants in the.

Books, you know what I'm saying.

So still, but I'm saying, like the gross perpetuation of what has going on in this country has just continued to just cycle and to the point where it's like you can't even really get it education about who you are, You can't who's gonna talk to you? Or we should talk about it doing Black History Month? Well, why the fuck should we relegate our entire history to a fucking month?

You serious? Enough? Like, how about how about how about.

We take the time to get the information ourselves, or either at least do some investigation along the lines, even just giving people an idea of what their lineage is.

Who knows it might it might or might not be true.

But the point is it's information, and I'm happy. I'm happy that somebody decided to do that. But why is it that we as black people didn't come together and figure the shit out by ourselves, Because and say, listen, let's put let's put this money together to begin, like, let's do a collective, right, We'll go around, You'll go to any motherfucking church in the world, and there's a

That's that's why I asked you, how did you feel when you got the information back? I felt great. I felt great. I released like, oh I came from somewhere. Because I don't think people understand the fact. That's what

Hip hop though, because hip hop made me appreciate Africa. That's because you were born what you was born seventy eight. So in the eighties, see.

That five year gap, that five year I was born in seventy more made different? Ye different? See me being born in seventy one and being of age at nine and like eighty eighty one. That's how shame we were to even be called that because but you know you you became of age at eight or nine in eighty five, eighty six, eighty seven.

Well by that they were manipulating your mind to celebrate everything but who you were, right, But.

I'm just saying that those seven years between you and I of the seventies, that's a generation different of thinking. Whereas you know, but everything you become of age when public enemy is.

Like, but did you travel to Africa when you were that age? No, did you see pictures of Africa when you were when.

You were but they are like the world, the world.

So my point is you were being manipulated.

You know this.

I'm just I ain't telling you nothing that's rhetorical, but I'm just saying, like, to be perfectly honest with you, it was hip hop that basically decided to use that as a form and it spoke to us. Was it relevant, you know enough to be like, all right, we're gonna lift up from this and continue to keep it going. No, y'all were They were courageous as hell to even have

Then it was drugs. Then it was the opulence of drugs.

Then it was the disconnect from anything that had anything to do with being smart at all.

So now here we are.

And then some of our artists that came from that era, like the whole even with the whole collective of Daylight and everybody else, Like people got older, they got into.

Making money and brands things like that too.

So as we have so clearly noticed within our generation that we don't live long enough in order to celebrate what we started fighting for the most of the most of the people who were advocating before they got official jobs, so now they're insult ferment they got they got government jobs, you know what I'm saying, and they're trying to survive. And then whatever the hell they got they trying to hold on to. So it's like they can't go too deep.

And then they realized, oh man, this is a trap, which.

Is the not to not for nothing.

But that was the argument with some of the public and the Grammys versus Golden Globes, because it was like, oh, we show we is quiet.

We got to protect dog brand. But meanwhile it was at the other one and.

It was like, ah, but I'm just it's just interesting in that way, very.

Interesting protecting if you want to talk.

About that, I mean, if you want to talk about.

It being as though you're you're in Atlanta Native Okay, as we get further into your story, I'm curious to ask you how your your current mind state, your evolution correlates with the culture that Atlanta has now as far as hip hop culture is concerned. But okay, great, now I'm gonna sound like the cliche, but I want to start back in the beginning. Let's go back.

You're gonna take you way back.

So were the hits. So you were born in Atlanta, Georgia.

I was born in Dallas, Texas. Really, I was born in Dallas, Texas. Fort Worth, Yes, fort Worth, Texas, which is.

Dallas, Dallas, Texas on usher Riem in the fourth. Yeah. How long did you live in Dallas?

A year?

I don't count.

I mean that's why a lot of people were born and you were actually went to military brats. But my father and my mother, they they left Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is where I would ultimately end up.

So and that's where I was actually from.

But my mother and father went to Dallas, Texas to really started, you know, to start a new life.

He played basketball.

She you know, she was she played basketball as well, but she was an intelligent woman your mind.

Played ball.

Yeah, my mother played basketball.

Yeah, I mean in a college way, like, oh, neither of them made it to college because they had me, so they kind of that kind of was the rude of waken it for both of them.

High school, high school. My father would have.

Went on to have played basketball. He was an incredible basketball player, noteworthy to this day, like everybody still remember Urkie that was his name.

But they moved to Dallas. They had me.

Relationship was obviously, you know, not able to survive. And they broke up. They broke up. She brought me back to chatting Tennessee and that's where I'm from.

Okay. Yeah, were any of them musically inclined or it was just a matter of just playing you a whole bunch of stuff in the house.

And I think my mother is the person who's most responsible for introducing him, introduced me to music. But after I met my father, I heard him and I realized he had a voice. He was a man of conviction, but not he couldn't get the shit together, you know

But which is most which is the case?

So that that's another story about we're talking about history. We're talking about Africa and the idea what that was, but also too, fathers of that time, like most of the people, my peers that I talked to, they felt, you know, some of the same reality. And then for those who didn't, you know, they became kind of the reference.

It kind of figure at least between like up to ten, who was the guy you could talk to you about my grandfather.

I had a lot of uncles, so my uncle Darryl, my uncle Bruce, uncle Gary.

He lived in DC. I didn't really talk to.

Him that much, but he wasn't my mother's brothers, but Bruce, Darryl O'Neill. I never met my grandfather, which I felt was, you know, looking at pictures in him, you knew his name was John Henry.

That's a hard black name.

Yeah, but but yeah, man, you know, I didn't really I ain't have a reference. I just kind of looked around and it was a collective of people that kind of just invested into me because they realized I ain't have a dad either. And I mean I turned out pretty much, you know, all right, But you know, it wasn't like I was pulling from the source.

I was actually pulling from the lack thereof.

So not having a dad made it like a task for me to you know, know, to be in my child's life, to be there for them to understand who they are.

And I'm telling me raptors around, So you understand.

Part of the reason, one of the reasons why twenty three and meters was so important is there was a lot of things that were kind of like egging me on, like about not knowing who I was and not and us not knowing you know, you know, being introduced. When I went over the overseas to different you know, types of spirituality, Yoruba century and all these other things that I just saw it was just around.

I was like, man, it's crazy.

All these people who my great from Africa to these neighboring islands.

They preserved the idea of what.

Our original spirituality was or our connection to spirituality was.

So I went to.

School and they and they wanted to do a lineage, like they wanted our kids to offer something from a place that they were from. So you have kids who were from Italy. You have kids who are from all these you know, this is a school in Atlanta.

I don't want to. I don't want to.

That's so interesting.

They know, they no, but they but okay, so this is not a public school. It's a private school, and it's for all the right reasons, right. And when I asked my son where he was from, he said, I'm from Atlanta.

I'm Georgia. I was like, actually, so you're not from Georgia. Yeah, i am. I'm from Africa and I ain't from Africa. And that was the beginning. And it was like, you know what, this matters.

This matters, and I got I gotta, I gotta go ahead and go through do with this, and I've been talking about it. And I went ahead and they did the swab and went through the whole process of giving him like and that that that was just like the I gotta get this right.

So what's his mentality? Now? Does he have a deeper understanding?

He has eight? He has a deeper understanding.

And even even though he does, we actually, you know, we put to the following year, because they have it every year. We put together his thing and that was all these things that you know, they made from West Africa or Mali, which is where we kind of claim. But he still wanted to bring macaron and cheese to school.

That's part of it though.

And by the way he showed it to me said no, this is actually something that was made there.

I was like, all right, okay, cool A teaching you?

So at what point are you finding your your voice, your your actual singing? Boys? Like, were you raised in the church or was it?

It was my mother, My mother, she was a you know, she was a youth director of her choir in church. So outside of listening to what was on the radio, and you know, just the same the same way as you know, y'all had ciphers in hip hop or either had bands and shit like that, right, we had ciphers to a singing. So if you came to school and you couldn't sing like what was on the radio, then you was kind of whack, you know what I'm saying.

One question, ohld you talk about just singing a question? Your first vocal coach? Yeah, apparently she had break down like certain songs and you have to learn the harmonies and it was like really advanced.

Yeahuff talk about that all right.

So she made me listen to Take six.

And she would say, how old are you at this point? I'm about well, the first Take six record came out that was eighty eight.

Yeah, so I'm fourteen.

I'm fourteen, And I mean I didn't have a vocal coach as an artist until I was signed, right, That's when it really started. But before I didn't really need one, you know what I'm saying. I mean, I don't think I was perfect, but singing all the time repetition basically began to prepare me for it, and anything that was on the radio, I would try to beat it so if I could sing better than it or either ad libbing between little spots to kind of make it my own.

Gotcha. You know what, I have a theory about Usher, which is it was there was I think this is when you make me want. A video came out and we were like we were in the studio recording and the video came on the monitor, like the volume was down whatever, and my manager rich Uh said that you know what you're watching is He said that Usher was the beneficiary of the first of the what I call

Was more important to my cousins and my older.

Trickle down, Like it wasn't a first thing with you with No, I wasn't it. But I would have never guessed that in the skillion years.

Well, everybody loved Michael Jackson, but that was that was just off of you know, Off the Wall and all that. So I could appreciate Off the Wall a little bit later in my life, and he wasn't really the person who influenced me. Michael Jackson overall was as a presence because he was the biggest, right, But it was guys like Bobby Brown that connected.

Yeah, okay, you know what I'm saying.

And yes, looking back at that, it was special to me, but it was like I can't I can't obtain that, I can't reach that. That's not that that doesn't necessarily I can emulate it. I love thrillers. I was deal with everybody watching thriller right, and that that phase, Yes, everybody was completely crazy fanatic over Michael Jackson.

But even still, I was trying. I was trying.

I tried to emulate what I knew I was, and I was more of a street dancer and a singer. And I listened to New Audition Bobby Brown and in that world.

You know what I'm saying, just saying from the fact that no, I'm just saying that you none of your experiences are firsthand church you know, uh, talent shows.

Yeah, yes, that started.

Well, I just meant in terms of like radio plays a big part of your experiences, whereas like a lot of the people that traditionally.

Start my ship was Donnie Simpson.

I'm saying, so it's like that was my generation, right, I'm from Yeah, Sherry Carter and Donnie Simpson. That was my generation. And that's basically how I made the connection.

But dance was it the thing like mom, I want to sing and all this thing. It was just like, oh, yeah, I could do that. I can dance. But I mean, were you thinking, like eleven, that's what I want to be when I grow up?

Like it was Michael that made me feel like, that's what I want to do. It was Bobby Brown that made me feel like that's what I can do.

So Bobby Brown was more accessible to you everybody, So he's your hero. Yeah, wow, damn. Now I want to get your feelings on the New Edition movie. So at what point are you, I mean, at what point does this become a thing where you become serious about it? Because you you the first group was when you were like eleven, right, eleven and twelve. I was twelve, Well, talk about that experience.

So there was a they were youth anti uh, they were anti youth drug group who came to high schools to talk about drug abuse, gang violence.

And stuff like that.

Right, And this is back in the time when I was like in talent shows, just trying to find my way. So if I wasn't singing in church, I was singing, you know in the yard. You know, in my neighborhood. You know, my cousin he used to dance, so he would battle and stuff, and he had me come in like like the little kid from you know, b Street and breaking and I'd be like the special guest, the cat who would come in and just slaughter because you know.

No one expected you and you right, so I like three card the dancer versus like the random person in the crowd.

But yeah, it was it was, it was, it was. It was more Bobby Man. It was more Bobby Brown than anything. But finding my way to my voice. It was just kind of try to never listen to that damn radio and then watching those videos. And then I met this manager by the name of Darryl Wheeler, right, and he was like, I really want you to be in it. I want you to, you know, audition for the group, and he said, I want you to come to the show. And we just so happened to be

He just jacked rude. Yeah, I mean, but.

That was it was like I wanted it I wanted to. I wanted to be a part of it, and him leaving that little door open, which was my It was my best friend named Damikus who introduced me to Darryl at in our auditorium at my my elementary school or middle school something like that now elementary school. But after that, man, I just kept I just kept, you know, going wherever they were they had to, you know, performance downtown.

You know.

Eventually they start having rehearsals in the gymnasium in the neighborhood. So I started coming in and just kind of trying to look looking at what they were doing to try to figure out what their dance steps and things were. And I would just sing. I would just I used to sing ready or not after seven, remember that. And I was like, you know, just use my use my talent. Let me figure out how to get in whatever I

So I did it. I was like, all right, I'll do all of that. That's what.

I think the oldest oldest guy in at Anthony Bird was he had to be like sixteen or seventeen, maybe seventeen. So there was three other guys, Adrian Red and another guy by the name of Chocolate, So they were all in this. We were in this group together and it wasn't really going because the reality was they were built to be what they were and you.

Were meant to be so low.

No, it didn't.

That didn't happen until little bit later. Actually it was I'll tell you my mother was the reason that it happened. But we then became a real group and we went to Forsyth County in Florida, and we signed with this record company for Side Records, and we started, you know, building songs. So I had this song dream Girl. That was the first record that I ever had in that group.

So then it.

Gave me like a voice, because otherwise I was just trailing trailing behind playing or and dancing to the records and shit that they had. And every so often I kind of you know, up to try to upstate somebody else.

Just doing riffs and ship like that.

But my mother was like, you're not really getting to you know, I'm not my son's not getting the benefit because he's never on stage. You keep putting in, putting him in the back, and you know she just wasn't happy, you know, So he tried to do whatever he could. Eventually, I, you know, I left the group. She wanted me to get out of group. Of course I didn't want to get out of it. I actually ran away.

It's crazy shit.

Ever, I ran right away from from.

Run away from home, but never do it.

I tried to run away from my own.

Oh, black kids don't run away from all.

I think we all do.

You get to ask me when you come back to our black parents, they be like, good.

All that ship in there is mine.

Exactly what you're talking about, Bill Steve Yard. Ever run away from to run away from my sister.

My sister ran away from hom like all the time.

So she'll be back tomorrow. Yeah yeah, See, like benches are crazy.

Hey, man, come on, So what year was that when you old you you ran away?

I mean I was twelve thirteen, and this is around the time that my mother had moved me to Atlanta, and I was like, you know, you destroyed my world, man, this is everything to me.

To see what your mother said oh, I just look forward to it.

She was like, I hear you.

Oh okay, She's like, but she said, you're not going to go where you want to go in this group. So I'm gonna I promise you, I'm going to put you in every situation that I can to be able to help you, to show you that you're worth it, that you are a solo artist. So she started me and entering me into talent shows, auditioned for the Apollo audition for a Star search. I got into a talent search, a talent show by the name of Atlanta Talent Search.

Me Brown's bodyguard situation. Yeah, it's serious, Sue Knight. Yeah, So wait, why did she move to Atlanta from Chattanooga.

She moved because just you know, they she wanted more man, she wanted more out of her life.

What was in Chattanooga, Like, what was your observations of Chattanooga was there.

I mean, it's not much different now than it was then in terms of opportunity for you know, advancement, Like it's very that there's if you have the confidence that comes from elsewhere, you will wander into other areas. But if you don't, black people stay away from white people, and as a black side of town, damn near in a white side of town or a progressive side of town.

There with you? Have you you returned to Chattanooga to do so? Since?

No?

No, no, I've returned to Chattanooga to do do you know philanthropic work?

Right?

Yeah, it's what area is that in?

It's in front of the school that I was telling you about. Deal would It's like, it's like right down right in front of it.

Now. I want to know if he had his Chris Rock sign moment y'all all of us before? Yeah? Yeah, So she went to Atlanta just to get you a better opportunity?

Was you went to Atlanta because it offers something better for her? My stepfather at the time, he worked for this trucking company and it was better for him to be there, and also too, it was an opportunity for her to be able to move forward.

So what were you when you moved to Atlanta.

I was eleven eleven twelve, so I was kind of going back and forth from Chattanooga to Atlanta working with the group. And when we worked on that album, you know, it's you know, I was kind of just moving wherever I could, man, because I at the age of eight, that's when I decided what I was going to do. I had this vision and from that vision, it was like, Okay, I want to be an entertainer. I want to I want to be on stages. I want to perform for people, and that's what I want to do. I don't want

But how problem must they have been when you did the Cavaliers move, because that's like the perfect combination, like they must have been.

Oh that's great.

Yeah, yeah that was That was pretty cool, right, like you even you did it either way? Yeah, yeah, you know, oddly enough, man. You know, once my grandmother passed, we don't really get together the way we used to, and I wish that we did more. But everybody's growing up. Either they have kids, there's some of them back in Chattanooga, some of them moved to other you know states, some people got married, you know, some people live in Atlanta. Some people you know, move and moved to d C.

I work on that.

Big Mama's the one that keeps the family together always. She goes.

You can't go all the way to West Africa and I go to Chattanooga, you know what I mean.

You got to get there.

Somebody gotta pick up a few people anyway.

So okay, so by the time you're eleven, it's like the nineties, early nineties, ninety two, I guess by this point, I mean Atlanta's officially put its stamp on being a black music mecca. I mean, is that fact lost on you or is that something you're not thinking about, like, oh, this could be a better opportunity for me because.

No part of my mother's plan. It was a part of my mother's plan. She even mentioned she says, you know that La Reading babyface. You know, they just started a record label in Atlanta, and you know, I hear that. You know you could get you know, if we put you in talent shows, you can get recognized. So she put me in this That was his brother's a distinction. I think it was the name of the name of the group that was putting together this thing. And somehow

Yeah so you were allowed out after hours to sort of casey spots and perform.

And without a doubt, I was not the kid that you told no, because I wouldn't accept it. I'd say, Okay, if you don't want me, if you don't want me to do what I'm doing.

It, guess what should You're still I much job. Your favorite least word is no. For those For those of new context, you know usher in the roots are working together now so whenever I want usher to do something, I now have to present it in a positive context just so he can say no. And that can be like, but I guess I've been that now, thank you.

Now I know what you're doing.

You know what? Yeah, I'm sure you're right. We should we should do a twelve minute version of you got it bad right? You are so right, man.

But this must have been a really hard job for your mom because like your mom evolved into like supermanager, like she was like Matthew Knowles before Matthew Knowles. And at the same time she had to keep you confident as an artist but humble as a man.

How why did y'all?

I wanted to know what kept you out of trouble?

Because say that again, I said, confident as an artist, but kind of like humble as a man, like not not.

A dickhead, because as.

We're sitting here talking to you, and I've seen throughout the years, you're not a dickhead, Like you're a very humble individual. But like a ma just said, you know what you want, you won't say no, but you know it's a fine line.

The confidence was the confidence came for me, right, and it came from the security of having someone who I knew had my back, which was my mom. So as long as she was able to focus on the business, I could focus on the art and the creative part of it right, which made it all right. And then the rest of it was like I just never wanted to be in some ship that I felt like that I couldn't control.

You know what I'm saying.

I never wanted and so many people were getting caught out there, So those references was like, I'm not I can't let none of that ship be the reason that I don't make it to where I want to be. And I'm definitely not gonna let you know I'm not going to because and I had so many little heels to climb, Like I lost my voice as soon as I got signed, Like imagine that right when you signed the first deal, when I signed, when I signed a deal to the Face Records, I lost my voice.

For how long?

I lost my voice like puberty or like PUBERTYOC puberty for about two muths. It was like that, and you didn't know what, you know, what the hell was getting ready to go on? The label was talking about dropping me before this was after Portos, I couldn't perform the record. They put the record on had Yeah, they had a showcase for me, and I couldn't perform the record at all.

Puff Puffy was there. I think it was entertaining.

Him, him being my my executive producer at the time.

But yeah, man, it just it went away. What was it?

Wow? Okay, because nothing I have Wait, can I I know what you say?

I know, I know sabotage, that's his favorite theory for everything.

But I'm saying like black people rarely delve into psychological matters or whatever. Like I know that me personally. For anything that I'm trying to overcome, you know, and something happens, like an injury or something, it's you know, I'm sometimes I think like, Okay, how do you really feel about are you scared at this moment? Whatever? Like the mind does have a way of crippling you and while you're facing the exactly now in theory, was it eight weeks

Did I feel afraid? I felt like it was over.

And I felt like okay, if I just I mean, I did what I knew to do at the time, which was prey.

Did you feel it with psychosomatic Yeah, well I subconsciously.

No, I didn't.

I didn't sabotage myself. It wasn't fear or something like that. No, you mean in terms of just having to go through that at that moment, because sometimes your body can do No, it had nothing to do with that. I was working my ass off and I wanted it.

Yeah. Yeah, Okay, there's an un there's an artist that I can't name right that so it's the same artists.

I just figured it out.

Everybody in the room can know, but me.

No, it's not that artist. It's not it's not the fourth letter alphabet.

Yeah no, it's hell No, it's you know, okay, yeah, because that's always him. Okay, yeah, I keep racking him under the No, there's okay. There was there was an artist that uh we were working with and a situation happened.

Oh god, these are so good. Okay, a situation happened in which, let's play guess there. Always get so frustrated. I know, because I'm not I'm not trying to be gossipy or ride somebody on the bus. But I think this is a classic case of their teeth started to fall out. Now, it wasn't like, oh they've got like literally they're.

Saying that the truth.

There's a pressure that comes with No, that is a pressure. You're right, Okay, so now i'll follow you what you're saying. But I had a different destiny and I was connected to it, and the moment that I decided that that was what I was going to do, I wouldn't let anything come in between me and that.

Right.

But you're right, there are tons of people who sabotage themselves, who got caught up on you know, and drinking and then eventually you know, moved an upgraded to you know, heroin.

But I don't even think that's thinking like, Okay, a big moment's about to happen for me tomorrow, Let my teeth fall out right now, or you know. But I do believe that subconsciously we are able to create obstacles without even purposely wanting to do that. Yeah, which, yeah, I'm away with.

First of all, how was he she?

She?

You know the story? You like? Yah?

I mean I'm putting some things together.

Ooh damn.

Mid twenties, so that's far more advanced than a child. You know what I'm saying so the reality of probably the disappointment that led up to that moment had everything to do with the pressure that was going on with her.

So like so when you so you lost, so you cut y'all cut, uh call me a back, and then you lost your voice because that point that.

Was what ninety three three nine? Ye was ninety three? So how did you get on that soundtrack? Because that wasn't even the face related.

It was no La reading baby face.

They actually it was on Epic but like till C was on the soundtrack too, So oh okay, I mean.

But was that a face slash Epic thing or.

It was an LA reading baby face thing?

I think I think they had something to do with the like organizing of the album.

Oh okay, gotcha.

They didn't produce all the songs like Boomerang and all this shit. But yeah, man, that was that was kind of like my lunch. But at the rate that I was working my voice, I mean, I had saying till I actually you know, lost my voice plenty of times, but this time when I woke up the next day, that.

Shit just didn't come back.

It was so the next day came and then the weekend was there, and then it was the next week.

I'm like, what's going on?

How did you feel?

I mean, I felt like my window of opportunity was closed, and I felt like, Okay, what.

Were people saying around you at that point? Like tisk? Yeah, they were like, Okay, well, what what's gonna happen now?

Because you know this kid, he's lost his voice and he can't perform this song, so we'll just kind of ride it out with him. You know, I signed a contract with him, so at least I had the you know, the length of the deal, you know what I'm saying. But at that point, the fear of man, they're not gonna put any more money into me if I don't get if I don't do my part. So I had to do whatever I could to try to fix a remedy the problem.

This was before you even started recording the fast album I had.

I had well, I went through a stint where I worked with the Dungeon family and I worked with these producers out of Detroit by the name of Tim and Bob.

That's when oh my god, oh wow, Okay, so I don't know that.

No, I'm sorry about Tim and Ted. Tim and Bob Are from peoriah.

Tim and Ted the Characters. Yeah so Characters, Yeah, that was Troy Taylor.

Faith Anyway, Tim said they worked on a couple of records with me and I lost my voice, man, and I just it just went away.

And I had to figure that shit out.

So now I'm dealing with the fact that the label was getting ready to drop me, and Puff was like, nah, y'all can't do this kid like that.

Let me take him to New York. So he took me.

He started putting, He put me with vocal coaches out here to try to, you know, kind of change the direction of it. And then his idea wasn't about me being this perfect singer, even though I had like, you know, Kenny from uh Intro and Missy and I mean like great singers, Faith Evans, all these great singers around me, you know, and they were supporting me too, like now you're gonna be alright, just keep going. I'll be sure. He worked on my first album. Yeah.

So wait, so Puffy took an interest in your career even though you weren't signed the bad Boy or his management company.

I mean, okay, So the reality of how the business works is odd. Right, So if you have an artist like me, there's an open budget, and if you're attempting to establish a record company, that damn Nick gives you free range to do whatever you want to do doing them sessions.

So so I was not, but.

By the way, a genuine relationship was bond was was built in that.

But don't get it sucked up. I knew what was going on.

What I'm saying, Like, if Craig Mack is walking out of my walking out of my session, you know, I'm like no, But I mean, but by the way, that was what it was in that time. That's the nineties, you know what I'm saying.

So budget played for some bad boys stuff. Boy, So like what was that like?

Because from what I understand what I read before, that was like Boot like for you, like he had you, And like what was that ship like with Puff during that time?

I mean like, yeah, to say the least, did you moved to New York by yourself or like your mom came with you? I moved to New York with my cousin and shortly after that, Puff was like I got him, my cousin left, and that's what No, Yeah, all right, how old were you at this time.

Around this time, I'm fifteen.

Oh, how going we're living with puff?

Hey man, listen, what were your mother's rules?

What was her did she?

I mean, thank god she raised a sensible child, you know what I'm saying. Because it was readily available whatever you wanted to do. You know what I'm saying. It was, it was, it was. It was pretty crazy and for the average kid, they would look at it like, Yo, this is the greatest shit ever. But for me, man, I was a bit sheltered, you know what I'm saying, Like I really hadn't been exposed to sex and ship.

Like that like I was. I'm from the South, you know what I'm saying.

I came in with a fucking ruffled jacket on, looking like I was an earth wind and fire.

You know what I'm saying.

You know what I'm saying.

So and Mark Pitts picked me up from the airport and was like, Yo, we got you.

You know what I'm saying. Here on out, we gotta.

Get this fucking jacket off you.

Youre just wrong with the bad boy posse like it was. Yeah, man, I was with you, Biggie new Yep. Yeah, how did he have you?

Working like what was the I guess the boot camp, Like what was that training regiment?

Like we take your budget. He's ready to die now.

But he but he had me in the studio with Davante. I worked with I'll be sure. I worked with Kenny from Intro. I worked with be Heaven.

You gotta tell the story. I don't mean like a slation story.

But it's like no, because like faced backgrounds on that app like she's nuts.

Oh my god.

Yeah, yeah it was crazy.

Man.

What did I teach? Yeah?

I'm like, y'all got questions? What did I'll teach you?

When you're talking about Whispers? You know what I'm saying.

Man.

He said, that's one of your favorites.

No, that's my favorite.

Yeah, that was my favorite on that album, Whispers Final Goodbye. I'll show yeah, because at the time, think of you. We like to think of you because that was Junkie. He flipped the who got the problem Ronnie Ronnie Loss So it was like I was like, oh, he's singing over the black woman ship.

But but yeah that record because I was and I'm oblivious. I don't know none of you. I'm just that album spoke to you.

What too Yeah, Okay, I get it.

That's another generational thing between the two of you and me because again I assume were seventy eight seventy nine.

Yeah, I'm seventy eight and Bill again that that that difference like pre seventy five, seventy one to seventy five cats, we have a chip on our shoulder about R and B you know what I'm saying.

So we're not that receptive. Like even when I'm at D'Angelo, I was like dismissive, like R and B cat whatever. I mean, I was just a Nazi that way, So I would have been more dismissive to it, whereas we were.

Hops flew out on the R and B tip with felippeel to it.

Yeah, because y'all were sixteen when it came yea were open and at the time, I mean, because I always thought was strange at that record, uh, in hindsight like it kind of you know, people thought that he was that you were too young to be singing.

About singing mature ship.

Yeah, but but it was right in time where we were developing, right exactly, That's what was going on record.

That was my cake. It's time for you give me give me a doing it? Did you get whispers? Look man, the run? Look man, let me tell you something.

The run. So if the love was here.

The Many Ways, The Many Way Calm Crazy, that is pham Bone Gold taking my apron is on making right now, let me all right?

And was on my tape. Okay, if you're just joining us at the right time. If you're just joining us, we're talking to Usher him in the fourth and uh Fante's phone Boom Classics on his first record, which apparently as a guy who studied all his music, I need to revisit. So if if you're in the audience watching the the Usher Room, uh yeah, yeah, the experience. What song you like? Yo? That's my y'all gotta do this one. They're gonna determine the last two.

I mean something of the first record, The Many Ways was I think that one was dope? Uh, what's trying to think another one that people would like that well? Because I'm trying to think of like songs that were like good, but now even now I think we appreciate it more. The Many Ways is just a gorgeous song, Like I just I just think that's just a very.

Well right, can I can I rock many hit the post, Hit the post. This question Love Supreme with Foam Boom Classic number one by Usher Raymond the Fourth. That's right, it's gonna make you say. This is the many ways you need to work on that. I'm disappointed.

Only herd was Usher moaning anyway, love.

That you're more baby? What's going on?

I've seen you around my way a couple of times. You message just moving around the.

Way, right, I see all the fellow's my personally for your number. I like to get your number.

So you do this with some time.

I'm sten talking to phone or something.

Anyways to say anyways, soup bad you're surprised. I got conse shin.

She ain't shacking for the kids, I swing.

We no can wait? Please get past depression?

What a few for you?

Swell slunchy, your girls sell your watching me say Ochi and bread they don't know well, well Jesus.

Want That was the Many Ways by Usher Rim and our special guests on Questlove Supreme. So are you are you one of those people that cringe when you hear your older material or the people salivating over stuff that you made fifteen years ago like here, yeah, yeah, so I record now it's like it's it's nice, Like what are you thinking of when you I'm gonna like you could have spilled pizza on your shirt and you're like, man, that's when I wore you know, Like, what are you thinking of when you hear.

That one that I had lost my voice? Because I can hear it. I'm like, damn, I was fighting trying to get through that ship.

Yeah, So what.

Was it like when you finally got full control of your voice back? And it was like, oh I can talk again?

Oh shit, yeah, like it was actually after I left New York.

When I left New York, then I began to slowly but surely get.

It getting back.

Came to New York to record this record.

I recorded that new and you didn't have your voice, fully, did not have my voice.

So how long could you sing before the crack starts? The cracks in your voice?

No, ladies and gentlemen, I have never done crack.

I think it, you know, because I started trying to promote the album.

You know what I'm saying. I was there's another time that you got which will bring you the new edition.

But I was being managed by Brooke Payne, Whoa and Jeff Dison at the time.

Wait a minute, you are a brook Paen student. Yeah, Jesus Christ, that's that's that explains a lot.

I wonder if that was doing the break Wait when was that?

No?

Okay, So so now I started performing the records, but every time I hear them songs, I'm like, damn, that's just crazy. You know, how how how far that? Because you're living all of it, you know, and my voice has changed about five different times throughout the entire process.

Can't tell you some funny that you don't know?

Tell me, all right.

So when I first signed on the First Records, I wanted to do an album with Babyface and La Reed. Right, I signed specifically for the reason why, because of End of the Road, because of Bobby Brown. The hero that I my hero was produced by these two dudes, right.

So you didn't see him as like older Calder Bobby Brown, that's it, that's not Bobby.

Yeah, but he like they made that music.

They made that music.

So that's all I knew. And I knew that Babyface was still doing it La Red. I didn't know if he was in the studio. I didn't know that he had stopped completely producing. But I was like, as long as I can get a record by y'all. So La Reid wanted Babyface to work on me, and they were going through, you know, a lot of drama at the time. They were kind of severing their ties or either he just didn't want he wasn't comfortable and Atlanta and.

By the way, we talked about this ship. So it's cool.

I can I can tell you this, but it was it's kind of like private. Anyway, he got mad and he built an entire album with an artist that we know. Oh yeah, and he built an entire album for me, and he gave the entire album to that dude.

This is okay, let's guess it's like a mirror moment. Who got mad? This is this is baby Face?

Baby Face was upset and gave the whole album.

It's not Dremine Jackson.

Another one young guy period in that time.

What year I'm saying, what is this? Three ninety three? I can't even around the face.

I'll just tell you on the face he was. It was Tevin Campbell.

That can we talk exclusive?

Its just me and this is a.

Song for your settlers right there?

Take it back some reclaiming. Can we talk take that song back? Can we talk? Yeah, don't take a bad girl? Always in my heart, always in my heart, damn all those Yeah.

He got mad. He was there.

They were just they was fighting in puff in him. They had words or something like that. And then you know whatever, Can I ask because he couldn't understand, like why why wouldn't you do? Why would you give an album like that to this dude? You know what I'm saying, Like you got your own artists and they was having this ship. So he was like, I do his album?

You know what I'm saying.

Wow, all right? Can I ask? Okay? Wait? Did because hold? Did you record the songs? And then like just.

I never got in the studio with him, and I couldn't understand. It wasn't until Bedtime. That's that was my first record with him. That was the next album. That was My Way.

So, okay, was Bedtime presented to you already and it's completed for him?

No?

It was. It was primarily worked on the spot right in front of you.

It was worked on in the studio and I was there and then I came, I went into booth and there and cut it.

Okay, I'm doing it.

I don't think it was a song like that he just pitched me. Now, Wasn't that.

Because I'm doing a journalistic no, no, But I have a theory because I'm very obsessed with the process of how the water just went dry for Babyface after two thousand and one, really nineteen ninety eight. You know, they're like, there's the period the of La Babyface, and then there's the ninety five Babyface by himself shit, and then it's like, oh he with the neptunes like that, just hanging on.

Now, life happen.

He got a divorce, he got married, all of that shit, and then he probably just wasn't as hungry for it. You know what I'm saying, Like, I'm weally great friends now, right, He's the guy that I can call at four o'clock in the morning, He'll pick up the phone, you know what I'm saying, right, And I've asked I'll go back, and I'm listening to all of those old school like well what is old school now? But listening to those records,

What were y'all thinking?

He was like, man, we had that song for like six years that was just sitting in there, like Ronnie that had just been sitting in there. I'm like, for real, He's like, yeah, man, way before we gave it to Bobby.

But next to Prince's genius streak of eighty two to eighty seven eighty eight, I felt like Babyface's output of songs was unparallel and then it just stops like that.

So what do you think it was?

Well, I kind of want you to insinuate or not insinuate. Yeah, fuck just because I I I know that Pharrell writes all of this stuff and does his work alone. I know Premiere produces all this stuff, like really just solo by himself. I can't even imagine that Babyface had the work ethic where he's up night and day, just effortless churning out hit hit after hit like he has thirty five to forty Like, oh, I'm invest I'm invest on.

Nah?

I mean I'm saying that, By the way, at that age, I don't think I was thinking of any of that shit. I was just like, I want to get in the studio and actually get one out of him, because I haven't had any record period it.

So did you physically see him work? Like does he have a paper? And I did? That's all I wanted. That's all I wanted. I didn't know if I didn't La La and Babyface was a bit like did they just come to you with these songs or was it like you saw them sitting there or discord that chord? And what do you think? I just can't I never got the now Rogers and that wards like it wasn't that.

He presented the one that I can tell you that was one record that he presented to me, And that's I think that that's what kind of like really made him not funk with me at all period or l A read with regards to me because he also too he didn't believe in me as He's like, I don't really, I don't really lac la red babyface. He was like, I don't really, I don't get him. And he presented a record and Puff he he rejected the record and that was it.

It was like, all right, well then I'm not gonna have nothing to do with it at all.

How did you feel?

I was devastated it.

I actually signed the deal to work with those two producers, and I to this day still ain't got to wring it from him.

You know what I'm saying? Like so together, So.

Puff oversaw the first time he made the call in terms of what was.

He ep the first album?

Yeah? Gotcha? Gotcha? How now how did it go from?

Because you know you were talking about when you lost your voice, they were thinking of dropping you. So then the first album comes out and it doesn't do you know, it doesn't sell. I guess you know whatever, what did you?

What did the first album wind up doing?

I mean, I think and it's probably greatest. It maybe got up to about maybe gold maybe like now yeah maybe it might be gold?

Really that single carry that joint?

Okay, So how did you go from that to my getting dropped, yeah, to my way, like, how did you.

Well?

I started working with Dallas Austin on my next album, and you know, I bought him lamberg because that was what the exchange.

For doing my album.

Damn, how did you guy?

They was killing my budget?

Bro?

I was.

I was of that of that group of artists who.

Really you know, the hype Williams budgets.

Nah, but it wasn't that. It was that. That was that was that time.

So they had to find ways to kind of move and work their own ship. And the artists they just had to absorb that. And plus I knew what it was. We understood and if you think about what you're gonna end up paying a producer, it would be the equivalent of that, you know what I'm saying.

So he made money too, right, No, he did the album for Lamborghini.

Yeah, well he was. It didn't happen.

So wait, it didn't happen because he and I didn't We didn't blend. So I was gonna work on this album called A Book of Love with him and this is with Dallas awesome, and the motherfucker just wouldn't show up to the studio. I'll be sitting there for hours. I'd come there be sitting in the front. Then eventually I started picking up instruments and start trying to build the album of damnselfs was this amount of time when he was he was playing with it around that time.

I'm done. And that was it. That was the history of that.

And you know that's like in my mind, I'm thinking, like you're in Atlanta. I imagine how to funk out feel the climax of like the Atlanta movement. Like I'm thinking, like it's like the New Motown where you know, TLC's in the house and all these accounts and everyone's family that happened.

All of that is still true, but the reality is like certain things ain't meant to happen.

You.

I mean, I seen this guy and I was the fuller. I was a very very special artist, you know what I'm saying. Like back then, I had the confidence of like ten billion people.

No, I'm in up stop.

So look the dude passed up on me, man, like he's seen me before. I performed for him and he was like, yeah, give me a call tomorrow, man. You know like that, I was like, all right, cool, you know what I'm saying, I see you again, man, damn. And you know, so I'm still holding on a little bit of that by you know, sitting in that lobby. You know, I was like, man, fuck it, I'm not coming back to dude.

This explains everything because I'm seeing I'm getting to know you as a person and as an artist, and really, you know, I purposely especially for this interview. Normally, you know, I'm Google and start renal interviews just to see where you're want. But I know that you have this tireless work ethic about you, and now this is starting to make sense because now I feel like you really got something to prove. Even though yeah, you might be cool with Face and Dallas now and you'll see each other

That's another chapter to that that we haven't got to yet. But I'm just saying, because oh ship, I'm sorry.

I wasn't even I wasn't even trying to go there you want, No, No, let's go there anyway. I'm just saying that as an artist, I'm thinking that you now, oh.

Wow, you sound like me over there.

No.

No, we're not trying to turn this into that.

No, it's not the Gossip Hour or not not that, but you know, I mean, but there's certain truths that actually make it fun, you know what I'm saying.

And we all grown.

We passed it now, but we've passed it. So I mean the reality is yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Ship embrace the pity. Yeah. Okay, So how did so how did you come across the high hat king? You mean, I'm sorry, so think for the record, Rick Rubin has the loudest scratches on hip hop records, but bar none, uh, Jermaine Dupriez high hat high hats, Like when you're spending records sometimes your needle can be sensitive to grooves on the record and his Germaine dupre Yeah, it's like it could affect He has the loudest hip hop high hats

He did a remix for Think of You and that was the that was the beginning of me kind of working with him. And he was like, you know, if you work you know, let's work together. I was like, man, I really do.

I think it was like, you really did a great job.

He came in the studio, he produced it from scratch and said we created it right there. You know what I'm saying, And he he was just dope. I was like, man, when I work on my next album, I really want you to I really want you to be a part of it. And you know l A Reid put us together after Dallas and that was when you were working in l A.

Right that we did any songs with Dallas?

None?

Damn okay?

Yeah none that came out? You mean like did we actually the song?

Like yeah, I had a song called water Falls versus whatever? I mean, like, did you ever work in a song with Dallas?

I think he was working with Deborah kill Feel Debora Cox. So there's a couple of records on Debor Cox. They probably slid from my project to her to her project, and I think it was that Montel.

Baby you have the first.

No, I didn't do the record, but I'm saying I would have potentially had had that song if I weren't around them. And not to say that it wouldn't you know, he had his process man, it just didn't work with me, you know what I'm saying.

All right?

Anyway, So so I I ended up, you know, being put with j D and we just started working. I just started kicking it with and we worked on it in Atlanta in his basement.

Oh wow, okay, yah about that man, you will Seal talk to me about him because he was like I would always see him working with j D. He was like one of my favorite songwriters and what was his process?

Like?

So j D had a manual still working at the time, and Kawan Prayer the k Yeah, KP.

That's the name, Kawan Prayer. Yeah, he's uh, he's KP.

You know, KP. He's independent. He works with for real now, but he he he worked with Parental Advisory at the time. P A right, I got the official name he was.

He was R Kelly. Thank you, okay, God, I'm back to my quiet place.

That's our first lady over there.

No, that was put p a yard in the graveyard pepitone the I think the.

R Kelly.

That's correct, Kelly.

That's so sorry.

Nah. So KP he was over there with me and we just started working on the album. You know what I'm saying, and the rest is kind of like it became history. I just worked day in day, but JD had such a weird fucking way of working. And after dealing with uh Dallas Sauce and it was like, you want me to come to the studio and sit and watch you playing video games. I can't do that, man, I don't play that. I just didn't play video I just wasn't a kid who played video games. I stopped

So that became apply.

Trying to get you in shape all of that ship but his is missing a good one. So what was the first song y'all worked on?

First record we worked on?

Oh man, what was the first one. I don't think it was a song that made the album, And I don't think it was a record that made it. I don't even remember the damn name of it.

Man, uh okay. I was like, well, the album is called My Way.

The first album we worked on was called My Way. But the first song, the first song I do not remember.

Yeah, I remember my Way that hit my That was my freshman year of college, and you make me want to like it was like.

The last record of the entire album.

Why is that always because it's always like we're missing we need, we need to sing, we need a single. Was it was that thing someone like we're missing something?

I think it was. No, I think it was.

It's my favorite joining was one Day He'll be Mine, and it wasn't because of the Iley sample. But just like Me.

I think just like Me was the first record that we worked on.

But what was the song that you were like, all right, I'm bad now now I'm forced to be reckoned with or? I think it was nice and Slow. That was the one that was like, oh shit, we got something, but come back. It was another record that we worked on. And so, how how's JD directing this? Because I mean, at that point, I'm thinking of a strictly from hip hop context. So as a producer. What is his process in the studio. He's sitting there coaching you on vocals. Yo,

Now he'll actually sit in the studio with me. Now. But back then you had to literally like sit.

In the living room or like his little living room area downstairs in the basement, and they would just play video games for hours.

So who's coaching your vocals on this stuff?

Eventually it was Emmanuel and a guy this is back with Phil Tan, who was his his engineering engineers.

Always the vocal coach.

He would he would actually go through a vocal production with me, but it was mostly emmanual because he would he would put it down piece by piece.

And then I kind of go in and and work on it. We wrote certain things.

Were you guys, were you guys co writing together or yeah?

I would basically, you know, talk to JD about just different ship and before you know what, he started writing.

I hadn't I hadn't developed my my writing. I hadn't picked up a pen yet.

I'm just kind of like talking about things and he's taking it in writing it and before you know it, I'll come back to the studio. He'll hit me at three o'clock in the morning, like, come to the studio.

I'm like.

Sleepy, I've been I was out there all day waiting on you Todamn to do something, and then you didn't.

Now you are you a daytime studio person.

At that time?

I was, because I mean if I was still in school, man, like I'm still I'm still in school, trying to figure out how to balance between two worlds. And you know, I, uh yeah, I come out there three o'clock in the morning, tired his hell, and he wanted to work.

I had to start to go.

So you went to physical school like you weren't tutor and the the celebrity.

Now wait, man, I'm fucking up. No, I was out of school then I was taking my nineteen.

But the craziest shit is I was the family driver in addition to being a nighttime artist.

So I had to drive my.

Mom to work, drive my girl to Wait, was your mom still working? My mother was still working. I had to drive my mom to work. I had to drive my girlfriend to Spelman and then drop my brother. Girl, yeah, drop my brother off, and then get my ass back to the house for just a second. Go pick my little brother up, Go pick my mom up, bring them back home, Go pick my girlfriend up, come back home, and then drive to the studio.

I'm glad the story I was the original. You just wanted to show you just want more chauffeur than Usher. Wow, she's the original, yo. I'm actually glad you said that, because even as at least I'm even as the as an established artist, at least in the eyes of people that don't know the industry, you're still blue collar with it, and you're still like your mom's still keeping the job. She's not like, Okay, I'm managing full time or none of that stuff. Wait, is Brooke still in the picture?

Brook is no longer in the picture. I now am.

I'm just working on the album, so I really need a manager. My mother she basically, you know, helped me find an attorney that then kind of handled my business or whatever per album to album and you know, just kind of focused on once again getting that album, getting that I'm done.

Can you describe Brooke as a person, because for those that don't know, you know, thank god the New Edition movie went down and I love the way like he was my favorite character in a New Edition movie only because of at least the lesson that he taught New Edition, which was basically, I'm gonna teach you how to be professional. I'm not going to make you stars, but i will teach you how to be professional.

He's like that uncle or that granddad that makes you scared because you don't know what the fuck he's thinking good and you're like, I just don't want them to be disappointed in me.

No, look, dude, I spoke to him about that whole process, and he like confirmed that he he was, like, not exactly the black version of what's his name in Whiplash, but he did believe. He believed. I know that Brook told me that he he's a too much praise is almost damage into an artist because that'll make them relaxed. And it's weird that I'm not saying that slave mentality like the like to keep keep the workers uh in

And at that time, he wasn't working on choreography anymore.

So were you asking him to work with you?

Or I'm always meeting people, you know, when they just step in out of their space.

I can't get a fucking record from babyfacing in LA, can't get the pain that goddamn teach teach me a step now.

But I mean he had wisdom, at least I hope he had wisdom.

Yeah, he had man wisdom his record. It wasn't that. No, I didn't leave him.

What happened is new addition they got back together was home again and and this is right before everything happened for me.

You know what I'm saying.

I'm like, and he's like, you know, I'm like, I'm like, you can't leave man, And he and Jeff Dyson was like, we got to go back and work on this project.

I was like, well, maybe I can open up for y'all or something like that.

He's like, nah, I gotta give it my undivided attention as I would if it were you. So I was like, all right, you know what, I gotta respect that and if there's an opportunity for us to work again.

And that's when my mother became my manager.

Now what is that like because you're approaching adulthood? Like, is it easy the Joe Jackson Matthew Knowles of it all, Like, is it easy to separate the hats of the two when your mom's your manager? Like? Is she traveling on the road with you as your managers are? Like? Yeah, so how hard is that? Because you're I mean, you're becoming of age.

I'm a grown man in theory because I've always been the manager.

You're driving people to work, so how now?

But in my mind i'm also too.

I've elected to be the provider of the family, even though my mother is the protector, right, And in many ways I think that she kind of she crippled me a little bit for a minute because my focus wasn't it had nothing to.

Do with business, had everything to do with art.

And think I thank her for that because I wouldn't have I wouldn't have established the focus that I have now if I couldn't have just focused on music, music, music, music, dance, dance, dance, dance.

Performance, performance, performance performers.

If I was always kind of going to figure out who's trying to take money, where the money is coming from, I would have been petty, you know what I'm saying. I would have I would have lost sight of what what the goal was. And you know another thing, my mother never My mother was never the extremely. You know, I can't do anything. I can't go anywhere, you can't.

She let me.

I got into ship, you know what I'm saying, And she understood that's just things.

That's what men do. Boys do that, you know what I'm saying. But if you're going to do it, do it in the safety of your house. Be protected, you know what I'm saying.

Like, Okay, yeah, wow, I'm trying to go here.

Home, pull up. Don't make me go.

There, not right now. Okay. So when you finished the record and you're mastering your sequence, and at this point, are you like, Okay, this is it. I'm gonna show everyone that I'm the ship or.

No, it's just the work. I ain't even about to accolade at that point. I just want to work.

I want to get back on the road, I want to get back out there and perform. I want to just continue to grow. You know what I'm saying. It's like it ain't got nothing to do with showing nobody up. I'm better than anybody.

But it's like, no, it's not over for me, and I'm gonna keep working because I got more to do.

I still ain't.

I still haven't fulfilled what I saw when I was eight.

Well, MTV like grasped oranty like crazy, because I mean everything every video that I know was played ungodly doing that point. I think by this point, you're this this the well?

No?

No, is this the Merry Usher tour? Was that during that period.

Or seven to one?

Okay? So what is what is the what is your live show like now?

Like?

Yeah, my way was like I had a little bit of Philly with me. I had, you know, let me see, that's when I brought it was a little bit of Detroit. You remember, you know Kerran and Voudas Brinley, they had of Detroit. That's who played with Mary.

The current kurrent was EP for, I mean was MD for.

They work with the Dream as well.

I'm not sure if they do or not.

Okay, I'm trying to figure out who else they worked with.

Okay, but anyway, so I had a band, and I was comfortable with performing with a band.

Now are you like you are?

Now?

Like you're aware and you know what you want to convey? Like who's conveying your ideas?

Hearing me? That's it seeing me?

And is he listening to you a way I don't listen to you? And we won? So what what are you trying to? What are you trying to convey as an artist? By this by this time period? Like what are you at this point?

I'm trying to live out everything that goes with this album because it is the first time that I've actually made songs that are relative to my life, what I've gone through, what I've experienced. So now I'm trying to recreate, recapture those moments that you know, that idea.

It's a little bit it's.

A little bit country, you know what I'm saying, because and I had to deal with what I had access to. But you know, you know, when I came on stage, I had a tribute to Bobby that I did every night.

Now you you you do you have a close relationship to Bobby Brown? Or was it like, oh you're mind or a nice kid like the knowledge Joe Green commercial.

Now we were cool.

We're cool now, you know, there was a moment where we weren't cool and it was because he was he was really, he was really just like he was on the drugs.

Man.

It was just too much.

But okay, So what I'm saying is is we had a follow out. So he tried to fight me in the club and it was and I was thinking, I was going to ask you, what do you feel threat?

And you think he felt I wasn't a threat though, I think it was just the drugs. It's just, you know what I'm saying. Sometimes you know, sh it just happened.

How do you feel about meeting your artists? Because I have never meet your idols, never meet them because was crushed.

I was crushed, and I think that he just read me wrong. I never give my birthday.

He showed up to this birthday party that I had in Los Angeles and I introduced him my first time. I knew him when I was a kid because because of a j Alexander so he I spent time at his house.

I spent time at Boston. Time he cooked for you.

No, no, no, But for the record, Bobby Brown was like one of the best cooks of all time all right back to the show.

So now I knew him, you know what I'm saying. I drove driven in car with him a kind of sad well. I was kicking it with him, you know I'm saying. And when I got signed to the Face Records. You know, I was always like a part of the crew. I was a part of the you know betwn crew. And plus his kid, uh hakem with his nephew. He went to school with me, so I would always kind of be around with them. But anyway, I had a birthday party and he was in the house, you know

I think he thought I was trying. It was out there.

I was like, you the original, but I'm the new king, right.

So he caught me in.

He was like, it's like that little nigga, he said, for real, nigga, don't get He was like, don't get sucked up or something.

I was like, yo, hold up, man, for real like that, So you know what I'm saying.

We you know, so I.

Yikes, I kind of liked this, and then he kind of squared up with me and then they jumped in between.

It was crazy, man, And I'm looking at them like, but I idolize you, you my idol like real, so you remember that, Like I don't think you remember that.

I'm celebrating he and my mother and them.

They trying to pull me out of the place, and he like fuck, he like he going off on me. And I'm like, Bobby is me?

Like come on, man, and what year is this? What year is that when that happens? What year is this? August seventh?

This was this was after My Way.

It had to have been at least two years after My Way, so I predict it's August seventh. Yeah, it was after my damn man, this after Candy Girl too, right, like decades. I can't feel you.

Wow, you can join us? So My Way with that record? When just My Way happens and then you do the record, how did you know?

Like when did you know?

Did you said that you make me want it was the last one you did? Did you know that that one was the hit? It was like, Okay, this is the one or did that just happen?

Later?

It just happened, you know what I'm saying. You know, for me, it was never about a hit record. It was about getting back to the stage.

That's it.

You will get back. I need to get back to it. I need to get back to the stage.

That was it gotcha.

Rather it was a hit record or not. You know, La Reid, he had a job, you know, KP.

They had a job to bring me the best records and help, you know, kind of tell my story because they knew that I really wasn't allowing just anybody to just kind of write, you know what I mean.

Like we got getting the studio and got to work on it.

But let me ask, I mean, before my before you make me want to when you're listening to the album in progress, what's Ellie retain?

We just need that one, that one, that last record.

So even with nice and Slow and My Way, so I was established hits.

So now we wanted to come out with My Way. We wanted to come out with nice and slow. My Way wasn't even on this.

You want to nice and slow first.

I wanted nice and slow first. So he was like, now you got to have an up tempo.

So JD.

He produced his beat and I just rolled with the beat. Roll with the beat.

You know what I'm saying, because I can now. At that point, I was like, I'm all right, you know what I'm saying, because it just take him. It just take him a minute to get to it. And he was going through some ship. I was going through some shit in relationship. Were talking it up, and then one day at three o'clock in the morning, he hit me up and I came over and the rest is history.

After that record, when you went into eighty seven old one, that was that was the one that came after that one.

How did the Neptunes come into the picture?

For I think so, I've seen for Real a lady by the name of Candy Tooks. She introduced me to for Real when he back when they were on Future. I think it's the name of that uh, when they were with Teddy so they were they was like studio producers, you know what I'm saying. And I met him, but there was no connection. I actually worked on a couple of songs. I think, yeah, I think it was my I think it was before My Way and I had seen him, but I didn't necessarily at the connection, so KP.

Let's try to you know whatever. He was like, yeah, I think I got I got something, and I think it.

Was I don't know.

I don't know if I'm not sure if fronting was out or not. He was trying as hard as to get that record. He's China's hardest to get that record.

Yeah, you know, because it was one I think I think it was for eighty seven on one that didn't make it Sweet Lies.

Yeah, there's like ten I love two songs. Yeah, yeah, I still love that song.

Yeah, man, was it is it? Was it any truth that you don't have to call? Was originally for Mike or was that just is that fan fix that I don't know.

All I know is when I got it, l A went crazy and he was like, you gotta cut this record, and I was like, all right, I cut it, no problem.

Are you easily. The thing is because the the the folklore of the Neptunes, especially when they're in glory in their glory period everybody wanted the Neptunes cut. But you know, initially hearing the Neptunes, it was a hard pill for me to swallow. No, it was a hard pill for me. I think the first beat I heard was I Can't Make. I didn't know about s W. I mean, I knew nah, but that wasn't like behindset Tunes. It was I can't Make. The mistake was the first Neptune sounding song, and I

It sounds like demos, like how to.

Hit demo on the Casio is like, right, that's it. So how are they convincing you?

Yo?

This is the ship?

They didn't.

I got it from KP. So I was using KP's ears and when you don't have to call came on.

It was it was hard that beat was They played it loud for you tell man, that ship was hard.

Another thing Pharrell's world famous for how he sells you a song.

No he did, He wasn't there. KP played the record. He I didn't meet them until after in the studio, you know what I'm saying. And then that's when they were like, yeah, we met you before we met.

You back in lyrics on the original memo before you got it, he did, So I seen it.

It was real like straight Way shines well rise in our life, but.

Real simple.

Was that Around the same time, it was another record, It's a Sweet Lies Certified, Certified happened after that?

Okay? That was that? Okay, okay, give you three hundred.

That was back when he started working with Robin Thick, because Robin and him worked on that record, and me and Robin had always been like this.

Because I met him, I did it.

That's back when I was like interviewing people and ship on MTV and I interviewed and introduced him to to the to the world.

I was like, and he had long he looked like Jesus. I was like, man, you look like Jesus what they told me. He looked like, yeah, man, so well.

Also, we should know that uh eighty seven on one also contains the most unlikely departure sound of Jam and Lewis. I was about to say, yeah, what uh you remind me? Yeah, you remidy Yeah, because I almost feel like you remind me starts the period of them. I call it witness protection Jam and Lewis.

I know.

Okay, no, no, no, no, let me go back.

Y'all.

Y'all getting this all wrong because Terry's.

Wrong.

You're getting this all wrong. Nope, you're getting this all wrong. I gotta stop you. School is bro okay.

So a guy by the name of butter it Is who produced You Remind Me, and he wrote it, and he wrote it with his sister. So he wrote it with his sister in mine and I got that record. Wait, yeah, this one, Mark, this one, Mark.

I'm sorry you didn't write it, So I'm sorry on another level. Now, yeah, the boss Bill want to sack the Black Coffee right now, go ahead tell you.

But it wasn't. But it wasn't.

Necessarily it was his production from the aspect of producing my vocals and also to kind of leading the record.

But the record was pretty much what it was.

I just it was so comfortable working with him as a vocal producer that I wanted him to be a part of that song. Okay, yeah, so that's the truth about the record. Butter is the original producer of that record.

Wow, there was an album before eighty seven to one that got scrapped because I guess it got leaked on the internet. How much did that actually wound up on eighty seven on one and how much of it the rest of it's just kind.

Of eighty seven o one.

Because there was a single, was a poppy collar that came out and then.

It was back when you could actually put out of and then just scrapping an entire album, right right, So that was a single that came out eighty seven, Yeah, eighty seven on one right. So I had worked on a gangastan Ganga songs I worked on.

I didn't know that popul Collar was an official It was official.

This is back when you could send a record overseas, you know what I'm saying. And then that was the they and then they worked it from overseas and you just kind of got off of it in America. So it came out here in America and they just deaded it real quick and it became a record. It's huge overseas. It's crazy when I whenever I play that record, how they go crazy. I'm like, I hate this song really yeah.

Are there any other songs like that you just don't want? Nah?

Not really, I mean I'm cool, but I mean that's there's certain things that I have tried that works, and I'm like, why the fuck did this song work?

Because now I got to perform it forever, you know what I'm saying.

It was a short lived term popular college feel like it didn't last long enough.

Yeah, people didn't want to hear that. They didn't they didn't want to hear that one. Here.

I was going to ask you talk about songs that you never want to perform again, and I was looking one of those songs.

No it's not oh no, no, you know, and you'll be happy to hear this, you know. I love that record. I think I think that's the one record that I'm like, you do.

Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

It's cool.

I heard a story that apparently it was similar to I Guess what you make you want to wear? Y'all had finished Confessions and that was the last one that you felt it didn't fit the record. Yeah, ain't have shit to do with that whole album. But they was like, this is a hit. Fuck it, like you got to keep this shit.

Well, they brought me to record. It was Shakir and La Reid at the time. Yeah, and they were working with Sean Garrett at the time. So they bring me the record and I'm like, Yo, this record don't sound shit like my record. And I I spent an entire however long it took six seven months working on this album. You want me to just throw this song on there? And he was like, yeah, it's a hit. I'm like, so, I took the record and I played it for KP. I was like, yo, man, I don't want to do

It's a hit.

It's a smack. I was like, but doesn't it sound like he trying to be Michael Jackson, you know what I'm saying. And he's like, don't sing it like him, sing.

It like you? So who who did the demo vocal? Who was singing one?

Oh?

Sean was singing that's right.

Yeah, he was killing me, dude.

But I mean, we're skipping records. But I will say that when I listened to Confessions, well, I mean eighty seven on one questions, I said, but I'm just saying that the way that I hear Confessions, Yeah, to me, it's almost like the movie preview, Like in my mind the album still with throwback Yeah. Yeah, so just like, okay, you put a little preview at the top, kind of like snoops record. The Doggie style with rage starting off yeah, like okay, there's a little preview what you're gonna get,

The sequencing on it was perfect, right because it didn't make sense in theory to have a song like that that had nothing to do with what I was talking about. And I was so like theme oriented because I kind of got into like I really want to say this, like I want us to talk about real hard shit, Like let's talk about all the shit that nobody will

I was like, I want to do that, and I was one lot of guess.

I got one guess.

But so then I was listening to country music to it. I'm like, it's honesty in country music, the honest, So let's tell stories. I was like, let's just let's just sit around all five of us and let's just talk about all of the ship that has happened to us and We was all just putting it in the pot and it was like that's a song, this is a song,

I was going to ask you to talk about John Tay, Austin man like him as a writer.

So Johntay as an artist.

We worked together when I was younger and you know, kind of making that round circle back and you know, just just finding our way, uh, you know, through through whatever it was. Rather it was a contribution as a motivation or either vocal production or whatever it may have been. We really didn't make our connection until until here I stand. It was on here I stand that we really like he did this song for me called something Special that I mean it might not be a hit, but it

Right, just give to the ship. No, No, well two things. One, it's listen to you like describe your stuff. I'm now realizing most of my favorite usher songs are always the jams that like were not singles.

So like my favorite jam off Confessions.

Is follow Me. Yeah, Like that's the fucking one. Yeah, I mean, I mean the other songs. I mean it's so follow me is.

That's a marker for true artists though, like, yeah, it's never the hits, it's the filler that yoh, but it was the jam.

It was so strategic, you know what I'm saying. La was a master at that ship rather it was in Atlanta, or rather was record man. He's the greatest record man.

And is it because but you're also on Arister Records, So do you have any relationship to Clive Davis? What's at that time? I'm a period, I mean you were on arrest to that.

I was on Arister Record at that time, but I was La Reid's artists, you know what I'm saying.

So, so there's not a point where as to remove La.

And here's the great here's the greatest reality.

That was the greatest moment and the worst moment that could ever happen to La Reid because why because La Reid's ambition was to come to New York and to leave the legacy of what Atlanta had created, and while there was some there was some great shit that happened in it. I think that that legacy belonged to him, and I think that he should have never left Atlanta, because Atlanta lost everything when it lost to La Reid.

Now you believe it, you.

Know what I'm saying, Well, being as though he believed in you from the very beginning. Like what is your relationship with him? Like? Is he the Barry Gordy father figure that you kind of didn't have or like, or.

Is he just really it really depends on what day, you know what I'm saying.

But he's but he's when he's mad at you, Like, what is it?

He's He's never.

Really mad at me. You know what I'm saying. I don't really give you a reason to be upset with me and then hold on to it, you know what I'm saying. I just seen him in a spin class, in Los Angeles. He sat next to me. I was busting his ass. But you know, we have a real odd relationship because you know, in his transition, I've always wanted to be supportive him, and I've always listened him up because I believe in supporting you know, black executives and also to being supportive.

Now I had a deal.

This is the crazy, This is how much I believe in supporting black like business and also to black entrepreneurs.

So I had to deal with Clive Davis.

Like I actually formed my own relationship with Clive, and he actually supported a lot of my business, a lot of my business venture. You know, I wanted to have a record label, of course, I mean, who wouldn't give me a record label with all the money that I made for him?

You know what I'm saying.

But but the point was he he probably should have been the person to have collected or either been the recipient of Justin Bieber. But I took him to La Read because the legacy of what that represents needed to stay intact, you know what I'm saying. So wow, so but but but greater than that, It's like I just

Yeah, but he had it.

Confession is the last thing he worked on.

That was the last record he worked on.

It should be noted that Confessions also represents to me, probably the last product that people purchased, the last blockbuster. Yeah, because I mean at this what was the final numbers? Like eleven million? Okay, okay, okay, I know in hindsight it probably sold eleven twelve million.

But in the States, right, nigga, I'm not talking about.

All right, list Okay, I'm just saying that at the time Wing Confessions is out in you know, on Wax two thousand three, two thousand and four, you know, there was a nine next to that triangle in Billboard, which you know, after that period, after two thousand and four, it's a wrap like people are now like the internet is well with uh Spotify.

You know, I think maybe it was Nelly and me that was it. That was the last time.

But did you expect for you to be the final that final like in the final tornado of what we know as the music business, the old music business, like you're the you're the period at the end of that sentence.

Straight up, I think that all things right are inevitably going to come to an end. Nothing is going to last forever. And I think that record companies really did take it, take for granted.

The the potency of what was getting ready to happen.

I think they looked at it as, all right, we'll give you these free goods because it just gives us an opportunity to exploit and promote, you know, our product. But they ain't realize that, you know, and they this was crazy. I can remember the time when they were taking the meetings to go to go to Arista and other record companies to try to partner with them.

In front of it.

They wanted to partner with them, and they were like, Nah, we don't want to partner with you. We have our own solution. We know we're going to continue to create content. You guys, just do your thing. You know, it's just a little server, what you got. Whatever, it's done, it's gonna die right fifteen years later, right, it's like, nowad it's done. Okay, So now how do they feel to be the last? That's the question you asked, right.

Well, not that, but like at the rate where it's like, okay, it was seven million, nounced nine million. Oh shit, now it's eleven crap, now it's thirteen million. What are you feeling?

Pressure? Pressure to live back up to me? What is that like the pressure of living up to that?

Like did you expect this album to sell thirteen million?

I didn't expect to sell thirteen million, you know, but I but I expected to, you know, try to speak to the next chapter of what my life was, because everything had been about creating the chapters of what it was, not to go back to what worked before, you know, and even that meant, you know, not working with some of the same producers, you know what I'm saying, and leaving the door open for a new opportunity, a new a new story.

So when you have a record like that, one thing I've always wanted to ask, like, there's you talk about the pressure, but is there a point where you just have just like I guess, kind of common sense where it's just like, you know what, this is never gonna happen again, like kind of like you know, we talk about Prince a lot where he had purple rain and he's performing for like a bunch of white audiences and like he's doing stadiums and you know, all this shit

Now, come a little hippie. Yeah, Like this shit is never gonna happen again.

Like, do you have that thought of like there's no way artistically I may top this album, but sales wise, like who the fuck is gonna sell thirteen million albums twice?

Yeah.

If there's anything in hindsight that I do wish is that I would have exploited at that moment a little bit more why it was happening.

How so what would you doing?

I mean, just more a business more.

I was trying my hardest to just kind of build a conglomerate around me, you know, and probably made some decisions being overly ambitious and losing people who were very,

Man. I can remember the last show, the last show for Confessions.

I was on the Truth Tour. I had Kanye West opening up for me and I I was in Puerto Rico and I had this promoter. It was like, Yo, you got to come to South America.

You got to go.

You know, You've done Europe, You've done America, you know you got to do Australia. You gotta do South America, Gotta do Asian. I was like, man, I'm really tired, Like I really have like bust my ass and I work hard. So I was having really really, really really bad back problems. So I was like, I gotta just I gotta go sit down. And the day that I don't wish I would have kept going like shit, but I mean, and my numbers are good, you know what

But for the most part, I never. I can't just rest in a moment.

I'm like, okay, so what's next, Like, wait a minute, let's exploit the ship out of this moment. This moment, let's let's go build a fucking clothing line was too close Confession Fragrance.

By Calvin Corr. But wait, I mean, how much more could you exploit it? Because the confessions with six singles? Seven singles?

I mean in terms of music, yeah, I mean, I wasn't going to create another album, but I could have.

I could have went to I never. I have never toured South America.

Never.

I have never to this day.

Hey, I suld guess what, let's go to South America? Have you ever?

So what are the continents that you haven't Australia either?

Still? Yeah, done Australia to time and then you went to Man.

I know you went for your own but have you've done.

Africa at all?

Yes, I did Africa. I did tour Africa. I'm not really toured Asia.

What's your what's your favorite places to travel? Like as far as like you get excited to go, Like, what's a good city? Like, I mean major city.

Suck, major city suck well.

And kind of get off cities are the best cities you can experiment? I think the roots, don't overthink it, and we just have fun.

There's something really incredible about Paris, man, Like, I really do enjoy Paris. And once I got married, man, I begin to enjoy all the places that I that I go more because now I got a significant other that really does understand how to enjoy life and how to make sure that I am my kids enjoy life.

So your family travels with you on the road, now.

Yeah, well they did. They don't need more.

I actually haven't traveled in a long time, brou Like, it's been a minute since I've been on tour.

Uh And the last one that I went on they were with me.

But yeah, yeah, it's it's there's a handful of places like and I'm really looking forward to going to Zanzibar. I love Africa. Let me see, uh Marrakesh, really, I really enjoyed there.

Cuba, Cuba, Son, Cuba, now, not later, right now always, I mean even then, there's so much.

I know, but I mean like now, not later, right yeah, now, yeah.

Right now. If you're just joining us, we're talking to Usher Raymond, the family man who is here to go to Now I'm playing, I feel like I would be remissed. Uh if remiss I'm sorry. There's no tea on remiss boss Bill so Bro, we got you. Yes, I was remissed by cal said she missed me. Put that she missed me. I left her again, I was remissed. Okay,

She has a lovely backside. Well as a woman, I would just like to say, I know you removed the pic, but I saw the pick. I appreciate it, help could help it and wow.

But she obviously she's artistic.

It was artistic.

It wasn't the fool.

So what's crazy is that I got all that that that grief behind it. But you know it's it's okay.

We appreciate it.

I mean, I'm not even playing like no, I've worked with Gracie for the longest and she's one of the Like, I think she's one of the best things to happen to you.

I'm in love with my wife.

We love your wife too, respect.

For Yeah, man, I'm in what did you learn from the first marriage going into the second marriage?

And this is also the divorce clubs here, so you're your monks? Yeah, brother, yeah, we got to come home?

What did I learn?

I mean paying this is my next album now. But I mean, it's like you can't write a book on that ship.

You know what I'm saying.

No, I heard Raymond versus Raymond. You know, I mean, well, yeah, can you get too confessional? Like, now, what does here my deear mean to you?

As far as everything, everything, the honesty and the music is beautiful. I mean, it's it's the it's the curator and the holder of our greatest emotions. You know what I'm saying, both good and bad, you know what I'm saying.

Out, Man, should I do this? Should I be here? How should I be living my life?

And that?

You know?

But yeah, man, you can't. You can't overdo it at all. Be honest, be truthful. You got to kill the truth.

Well you talk about you know in papers. He was like, you know, I damn near lost my mama. What did your mom think about your first wife? You get And it's the reason I'm asking this. Did she give you the like, no, don't do this, Like what does she mean?

Much? The funniest ship in the world is how we could go through all this ship?

Right?

My mom?

She she wouldn't show up at my first wedding that I canceled. She wouldn't show up at the second when she didn't fuck with my ex wife. She didn'ton't have nothing to do with her, but she didn't want to have something to do with the kids, of course, and then they fuck up, and they fucking up best friends.

I'm like, so, your mom and the ex wife for now cool? Nah, they cool.

I don't know if they they got their own odd relationship, but they but they but their friends from the from the perspective that she at least talks to her now and they actually are cool, which which is healthy.

I mean some progress. I mean that's a lot for her too. Man, She like she like nails, you know what I'm saying.

Boy, Yeah, funny. I always wonder who's hard, like who she is?

Absolutely who she is?

Your mom?

What was she very much? I mean, I'm a grown ass man. Now she can't really you.

Know, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, no matter.

But yeah, she's gonna always be extremely protective of me, probably too.

You know what I'm saying, Well, I know your pen game is okay, not to play on the pun of confessional, but I'm sure by this period at least between a period of here I stand Raymond Versus Raymond Versus and and the four albums.

That uh that just real quick, here I stand, I'm may you know, I'm making like a big these are big words to me.

That is his secret life of plans.

Like yes, I agree, yeah, like that was, And so I wanted to hit on that a little bit because to me, that was the record and this is just from ours and I appreciate it like you because you kind of did like you were doing like some E d M stuff.

Well, I think that was. I think before that you had a couple that DJ No, that was it was after that it.

Was there was none of that that That record was pure right, and there's any.

Did you rush it? Because when I first got I think I got service with the white label. I don't know if this ain't sex or I got service with the white label.

This ain't sex was on it, right, And then that got camp And it's not that I rushed it. It's like they had an idea and you get right first.

Correct.

Yeah, they understood what it was that worked.

I was being honest in where I was so not being considerate of what I knew would work, I went with what I knew was real.

So I mean that's a compromise.

And yeah, it didn't sell as many albums, but it's the most truthful album that I think I have in terms of a cohesive thought from top to mottom. It's honest, it's like and it's probably my vulnerable it's my most vulnerable.

Title track as a mother. Yeah.

Yeah, man, that's the one.

When you were talking about songs and lyrics moving people, I thought about here.

I stay in was like, so was that your It wasn't clear P in terms of.

It wasn't cool to have a wife, you know what I'm saying. And at that time, and I was like, but I do. And if y'all fuck with that, then that's cool, you know what I'm saying. But eventually you're gonna get it. You're gonna get that party because you can't party forever. You're gonna eventually have to go home, and you want to go home with somebody that you

Us especially to her.

Yeah, and you know the reality of it that you know that.

That marriage and that relationship you know, was gonna come to an end or what was. But it served its purpose in my life, and I think I became appreciative of that, you know what I'm saying. And no matter what my mother was attempting to tell me, and a lot of people were trying to tell me about that, I think a lot of it had to do with my lack there of a father, you know what I'm saying.

But you know, it's it it, Yeah, it was. It was a phase that that needed to happen.

So part of it was a part of the evolution and then in that I begin to understand what I really wanted and the kind of partner that I needed and the kind of support that I needed for my life. She showed up, Yeah, showed her when I wasn't even looking to. It's just you ain't even asked for I pray, this is here's the reality.

You know.

I was going through a lot, you know what I'm saying.

I was like, here's at the point where I was like living out of my office, Like I ain't never want to go home.

I just wanted to just like just there. You know what I'm saying.

I didn't want to go home because what you just didn't want to face that like being alone or.

It's just I just I ain't want to Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't want to be there. I just did not want to be at the crib by myself. I just was fucked up.

Man. I wasn't even working at that time.

I was like I was just Raymond was out.

So yeah, but but then you know, after.

I got a divorce, it was like, man, like I put it all on the line, you know what I'm saying, and this is the right thing to do. I did it for all the right reasons. I wasn't trying to get like some odd respect for what I was doing. I was just doing what was honest and what was about the art. And I begin to understand the idea of the art at that moment.

But I didn't want to.

I didn't.

I didn't want it, you know what I'm saying. I didn't.

I didn't want to face none of it because I felt like, I don't know, man, I felt like, should I just put my.

Neck out there way too much?

It didn't work. We did in jail really public. It was really really public, you know what I'm saying, And it was what it was. But anyway, I tell my story. So my grandmother was like, you know, you should just you should pray. I was like, what did I pray for? She was like, I want you to pray for grace. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna just pray for grace because this moment is just hard to get through this, you know what I'm saying, Like, I just it's a lot.

And I prayed and she showed up.

I don't have a good sound effect for that.

That's all I got.

That's all I got loaded. I can't. Yeah, I can't.

Oh god, I got why they don't make a sound.

Well here you go, by Kelly, Well you you will destroy you. You mentioned him earlier, but you know, I feel the significance of you being behind uh want to want to pop music's biggest stars and the route that you took him biber Velly, I mean not since Marie starred taking new kids on the block, the orchestrating their career.

And there was a war from what we heard between you and Justin Timberlake to where is he going to go?

Where's he going to go?

Right?

Yeah, wait, Timberlake was in the picture.

Yes, there's a lot of people who I did not know this. There were a lot of people who had interest in Justin. I think that you know Scooter, you know, once he found Justin online, he began to kind of shop him around Atlanta, you know, because he wanted to get with the specific type of artists from Atlanta. He wanted to have like some credibility, and I was at the top of the list. But he and I were at odds.

He and I. We had had.

Me and Scooter.

I ain't no Justin yet, so he and I were at odds. But there was a conversation about this kid that Scooter was shopping around.

You know.

You know they say success has a million fathers.

There ain't enough people that I could think, you know, failures, write and failures and orphan.

It's not enough people. I never heard of that idiom in my life.

Oh, success has a million fathers and failures and orphan.

This is literally the first time I ever heard that too. Yeah, Chris Love Supreme open doors.

Wow, got a sound effect for that.

Someone failed. I feel like someone failed me by not giving me that I learned. So wait, what is it one more time?

Success as the main fathers and failure as an orphan?

Okay, I'll marinate on that.

No, but you know, he and I really didn't.

We went we want seeing eye to eye and it was over some It was like fifteen thousand dollars, some shoots, some stupid ship like that.

It happened back in the day when he was promoting clubs.

And so you had a relationship with Scooter before.

I had a relationship with Scooter way before.

Oh what was he like?

Who?

He worked with Jamain dupri and he also to work with Ludacris and go back and look at it.

So he's from Atlanta.

He was in Atlanta. I think he was at Emory at the time.

I've only heard of Scooter once Justin came on the scene, so I didn't realize that he existed as a business person before. You know, yep.

So, but he was actually managing an artist by the name of Asher Roth at the time.

So I loved College Pennsylvania. But still I claim him.

So he introduced Asher Roth, and he had this kid that he was interested in, but he didn't really know what to do with him.

So he was, you know, kind of shopping him around. He had Justin intro interested in him.

You know, they were trying to get the kid, and he was like, but I really want to you know, I really want to fuck with Usher. So I think that it was Terrence Carter, who was my road manager at the time. My homeboy was with me, Keith Thomas, Sherry Hughgley or Sherry Riley. Now, by the way, incredible book Exponential Life. She just introduced that book. I wrote the ford and it, so y'all, y'all checked that out.

Justin.

He said, can I sing for you? I was like, no, you can't.

See that's how it always it should work. Yeah, so I said no.

I said, but what I will do is I'll reach out to your manager and make some time maybe to meet you sometimes.

Cool.

He was like yeah, I said, if it's meant to happen, then i'll see you again. He's like, okay.

Cool.

So I went to the studio and.

Did you have inten on really seeing him again? No? Yo, that's real.

Yo.

I didn't. I did.

I didn't because I still was like, you know, I don't want to. I don't even want to invest in it. But it was it was two things even no. It It wasn't that I didn't plan on seeing him again. I didn't plan on rushing to hit uh to call Scooter. Because I seen him and I saw it, I was like, I was like, na, this kid got something. So I was like, but I'm good. So I went in the studio and I was like, you know, I mean it was that kid and they were like, oh man, that's some some artists a Schooter guy.

I was like, y'all gonna do anything? With that kid, and they were like, nah, man, it just I was like cool.

So then I walked out after my session and I played because I then looked on Once I saw the kid, I went and looked them online. I was like, oh, this kid he got something. So then I called my homie. I was like, yoh, y'all right, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, So I went home, showed it to my wife at the time, and Perry Reid was there. She was like pebble pebbles. She was like, are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? I was like, I don't really fuck

Are you crazy?

So I was like for real?

She was like yeah.

I was like I get it.

She said, yeah, you can get past all that. You should get pasted all that for this artist because he needs you. So I then reached out to Scooter. He was like, all right, cool, we had to fly fly his mom, him and his mom back down to Atlanta. He came to my studio the next day he sang for me, and I was like, you know, let's take a picture because it's be a part of history.

If it was intended for it to happen, then it will happen, right. He was like yeah, cool.

So that night I was like, listen, ain't nobody else that you could have this artist work with this artist with I'm the guy period, you know if you He was like, well, I got Justin and you know interested they put, you know, put the on the there.

I said, I'm not gonna put nothing on the table. I said, it's on you to make the right decision, but be clear that can only be one Justin.

Oh up, Shade. Wait can I ask? But no, that's really and I'm I'm I'm literally going against my rules of this show to not be sensationalists and gossipy. But I never asked, like what is your standing with your contemporaries, Like I'm just saying with us, It's like, okay, I'm down with common, I'm down with most and you know my contemporaries like are you you beefing with Chris Brown?

I got beef with How could I be?

He's yeah, I'm about to say, I mean, come on, like, who else is singing and dancing like usher? I just meant like, I don't know what you're I've never seen you and together or so.

There's there's always those stories, those things that people say, well, damn, I wish I had had you been smarter, been the right time, not passed up on this artist, not do this thing, not do that right. So there's one thing in my career that I definitely regret one thing, and to this day I battle with it, which is why I always show support for this artist whenever he asks, and I've always kind of like it ended up being

But so.

Mark Pitts comes to me and he's like, I got this artist. And I'm like, well, you know, I'm just really focused on myself and he's like, I know that, but I got this artist that I really think you should see and I want him to be your first artist. So I'm like, all right, well, let me see him. So his manager comes in, they have him, you know, they show him to me.

I meet him.

I was doing this album at the time. They want him to perform on this album. I was like, okay, cool, Yeah, that's cool. But I just I didn't get it. It wasn't that I didn't get it. I was I was a bit like, I'm gonna be honest. I was intimidated. Let me get these sound listen. I was intimidated by what it meant to move to the place of mentoring artists and not be the artist. So I felt like, I don't want to fuck that up, and I don't want to stop what I think I'm doing right now

I don't think you should. You know you you should work with this artist. And then he left.

Wait wait wait, whoa all right? I got my sound effect? Ready?

Who Chris Brown?

Wait? He's Mark Pinson's artist.

He was, He was a Mark Pitts artist at the time. But I just think it's like when I think about all if.

You had a chance to do you even think you would have had an impact. I'm just trying to tell you if yeah, well that makes sense because Chris Brown, really it was like the next in lineage of Bobby Brown. He Bobby Bage, so it's like he's the next. No that would make no, it makes sense why they would reach out to you too. I get it. Wow, but I passed man. So if so, had you, well, okay, Now in hindsight, do you feel you were why? Because here's the thing.

I think that every artist has something to go through, all right, because if you even look at the success of what Justin is right because they went through similar ship. But the reality is having the right people around, having the right support, that changes the dynamic of how it pans out.

You're an anomaly though, because I just I don't believe. I mean, I don't believe it. I don't believe in the artists being I don't believe in artists being their own managers. And I know there's a git. I know there's a grip of artists that are in my inbox, in my DM, on Twitter and all over.

There's a ton of shit that I I wasn't the.

Four things in my life and I got lucky with it. And I'm not saying I'm responsible for Jill whatever. But it's like Jill's slum village. Blow. I don't. Maybe there's one Cody, I guess, but I've made a life of avoiding that moment.

While you smiling, I'm smiling at Bill, Please don't look at me.

You're just like, I guess, Yeah, because.

Cody was a real person.

We were just like, yes, Cody, Oh no, no, no, I mean, I don't.

Know what the level of it's intimidating to get out of the comfort zone to where you are and begin to have the responsibility of other people.

Man, it's a lot of Man.

I just think artists make horrible business, Like you're either going to be a business person or you're going to be an artist.

And listen off the heels of having three artists that didn't necessarily fly, you know what I'm saying. You know I was, I had it was an artist by the name of Melinda Santiago, a group by the name of One Chance in Rico Love.

Those were my first three.

Artist I was about to say I knew that.

And think I mean that ended up panning out to be a great investment because I felt something different than him. I was like, I just think that you're an incredible writer, Like, and this is not a discredit to who you are, but you you really do know your way around melodies and you know your way around storytelling, so you should be a writer. He was like artists, it's like, let's let's just let's focus on so we got him a publishing deal and yeah, okay.

So that's why I feel like, had you take it on, Chris, do you think he would have listened to you? I do you know? Prince actually went on record to you know, and and Loeus death. Uh, he kind of sort of went public and saying that he really wanted to mentor Chris Brown, and you know, but I don't know.

I don't think Prince would have I don't think that's too far.

I just feel like there's a difference between generations and the post can't tell me nothing syndrome would have would have would have been like his Bobby Brown. I mean, like that would have been you know, I still think I am, but I think Bobby Brown was the aggressive.

It ain't a matter of was. I still am.

And that's why I'm consistent and I am a great friend of his, even through the complication and all of this ship.

So do you mentor him now, I mean.

As much as he'll alive.

Like, who are you close to now that you're not to business wise that they you know you're there one am call like yo, man, like I need some advice on some like who?

I mean it could be it's a ton of like business people and young entrepreneurs, people whom I just make myself available for. Here's the reality, right, if we really want to begin to remedy some of the issues that we have, we got to be more discipline ourselves to be people who share our information. I had this conversation with everybody, and I ain't talking about just mentoring people in your company or because it's a company duty and

As a collective because you got insight and off of that.

You know what I'm saying, I'm I'm really tired of the reality of what we are, what we are, and how behind we are, and the fact that we don't allow ourselves to come together because we just don't come together.

We're not community, We're not community or oriented.

We don't share.

We think that it's better to continue to climb individually and not as a collective.

Okay, I think now I will insert the modern day atl question that it was kind of saving us a snowball earlier. But the climate that is Atlanta now which very very active almost at its at least it's commercial peak. I don't know about creative peak. Of course, that could be agism old agism me speaking. But are you are you the character and things fall apart, that is, looking at the land and kind of have a single tear in your eye, like what's going? Are you a stranger

Why don't you just say it exactly?

What say it?

Niggas like just what he does?

This?

What he like?

Just say it, like I'm an answer to how do.

You feel about the ever changing environment of what Atlanta is now compared to what it was twenty years ago?

By the way, it's always been that it's just needed a curator, a person who could bring it all together and create some integrity in it.

And what I was leading to is, are you now La Reid and are you realizing that you now need to be La Read of Atlanta? Or is that too a lofty of an idea.

It's not too lofty of an idea because in theory, yeah, that might, that might have some I may there may be some influence in that to the people who are looking at what my career is. But what I'm talking about is more significant than just being one man who comes and takes advantage of all of the talent that's there and brings it together.

I'm talking about a collective.

I'm talking about a group of people who decide that our business is important, of a group of people who understand that our culture is important, and as a way to introduce it. And yes, it does take it right, but no, but it starts with a collective of people being on the same page because it ain't nothing worse than having a plan. And then you have other people compromising your efforts, which is going to be the case period, But it can't happen from inside.

You know what I'm saying.

If you have if we can just come together, man, and just start like supporting each other, not just getting on the record with each other, but like really helping and engaging in each other and understanding that the idea of growth isn't sharing. If you guys, if you got five hundred thousand dollars and two million dollars, that ain't shit. Man, Gotta you gotta tell these kids like, look, you think

Are they listening to you?

They slowly but surely listening. But I'm only one person trying. I'm only one person doing my part in it and in a perfect world, but you need who you need to gathering. Who are you gathering too in a perfect world? Who what figures are you gathering at least locally to at least make this a sembilance of a reality. It's a common conversation with everybody that I come in contact with. It ain't just one person, it's people who are in business.

It's changed. So now you got to figure out, Okay, you know, do you get politics.

So it's a matter of getting cashm read in the room, you know, managing to get.

Oh wait a minute, that was a paradigm because it's a lot of property he has speak.

Yeah, is he a presence or is he just a studio in Atlanta?

Nah, Tyler Perry is most certainly a presence, but there's.

More active in the community.

Or you don't know, I'm he know who? No, I ain't gonna bite my tongue. I'm not that guy. No, no, I ain't that guy.

And you're in the community, So.

I ain't looking at the right to make sure the job is not going to stop it?

No, No, it's not that.

There's a certain expectation that comes with stepping into that space and no one wants to compromise what they have in order to do it. So it's like we were talking about it, Yeah, getting people to understand that as a collective, if you come together if you bring it all together, you're stronger and then you don't have to compromise anything, right, But it's.

That one person who's going to step out and take the chance with the other person and who's But why not it be Atlanta's the home of like black wealth right now in that entertainment?

Does it still?

And I just mean an entertainment type way it is?

Is not in an opportunistic way because you see a city that's growing like we can.

I mean, but is it really you feel there's really in Atlanta right now? As it? At least I was perceived. I thought between between eighty four with people Bryson and Cameo, that class of Atlanta and Brick like the Arm, between that first migration between seventy nine and eighty four of all these artists moving to Atlanta and two when you guys were the new Jacks between eighty eight and ninety five.

Man for himself because there's no formula, there's no business. There's no Clarence Avon in Atlanta.

Mhmm, okay, I'll straight up ask you, do you desire the stress and the headaches and the gray hair and the sacrifice of your personal career to try to be that clar.

I'm not trying to be Clarence Aan, though I want to explain who Clarence is.

Clarence A Taboo Records, This is your show too, and Clarence Avant was the guy who go ahead and finish no. I mean, well, you know, my regret about.

Records Records.

My regret about him is that I feel as though the way he was painted in the documentary uh, Searching for sugar Man, Searching for Sugarman really painted him in a bad which I feel his you know, when we get to the Jam and Lewis episode, you know you'll see how important next to Don Corneli's and Barry Gordy, he was like one of the most important in stan Lathan, Like, you know, he's part of the power for that actually had power and resources in the sixties and seventies to

But everybody comes to Atlanta to take the peace of it, but they don't leave the structure that helps to continue to build it.

He's learning the black lily lesson, He's learning the black lily.

At least more people.

At least more people stay and build their wealth in Atlanta, because that's like one of the you know, that's the difference between in Atlanta.

Because now I'm here in North Carolina might be the new spot for sports people. It's Phoenix, like I'm here, I now Like there was a point where Atlanta was like the place to move, but then you know, it got overpriced and now it's hard to maintain a life there now here Atlanta. People going elsewhere to the Carolinas too, you know, to start again. So you know, it's I know, I know it's sacrificial. So in some sense, yeah, where do you where do you see? What's your next step?

Are really do want to make an album with y'all?

Quest loves to problem about it? Yeah, I feel okay for those that don't know. When when the Roots do the Roots Picnic, our annual festival in Philadelphia, we like to do collaborative, community based projects because you know, we feel as though that's really the spirit of Philadelphia, the collaboration spirit, that's where the Roots really shine. We're working

I was like, sure, had the roots picnic, but then when the when when the music started rolling, everybody was like it was like a shock to your system.

Like, oh, yes, now that makes sense me because usher got jams, you know what I mean? And I ain't saying that just because you know you're sitting here.

I just think that there's a revolutionary sound that compliments all of what you've been building and I really feel like I'm the voice to carry it out. Wow, I feel like there's a mission that is bigger than all of the ship that I've done in the past.

Damn. Now I feel like.

But it's not it's not pleasure, it's not pressure, it's pleasure. Like you really should understand that it took all of that to get to this place where I'm open enough and I'm capable of carrying out what needs to be done and said both as a standard of business and also to a standard of music that leads to the next chapter. It has textures of our roots, Africa, Cuba, percussions music tying the reality of all of what that

I believe it.

This is the record.

I think it's a record that I think it's a record that we're gonna work on. I mean, but it's gonna happen naturally. I think that we've been we've been working, you know, working together, rocking together. But and now we get into a place where we're communicating. This is communicating community. We're communicating in a in a way that you know, what I'm saying gets us down in the space of just being creative if you're.

Just join us. In the final minutes of The Usher Raemen, the fourth episode of Quest Love Supreme, U, Usher Raemon is now proposing that the Roots and the Usher do an album together, and everyone seems pretty.

Much excitedly what he's saying, like if.

You go back to the Root, what he's like that it's all of it, though you no I knew.

I knew from the gate it was going to lead to this, but part of me is like scared out of my mind, Why.

What do you want?

But you can't.

But you can't look at it that way because it's something that Okay, let me give you the reality.

The reality is in the process of making all of the albums that I have and having the platform I've been I've been living vicariously through a lot of other people's reality. So even though they've been telling my story, I've been helping the world through like poems and through like the ideas of things, and then I've lived things.

You gotta just allow us to just go in it and just and get it going. Because he's around, like this is a fucking intervention.

We have a plane ticket ready for you to go. Literally, the entire room is looking at me at this point in.

Your in both of y'all's careers, right, But I mean, you know, with you like you, this is in my opinion, you know, you really have nothing else to prove, so to speak. So it's like, if you want to make that quote unquote art record with the roots, which I don't think I'm just using that term loosely, but you have nothing else to prove, Like we know you can sing, we know you can dance, we know you can make hits.

And it ain't about it's like, understand that it's not a It's about including all of the different textures in places that we both have gone to make it. It's not like just one specific thing, you know what I'm saying, Like, use all of it. You see all of the examples of things that I've been able to do and you guys have been able to do. Let's bring it all together and bring the textures because there's a story that's

You know what it is though, and maybe this is coming forward. I see Bill looking at me because he knows I'm about to reintroduce the self sabotaged uh analogy, self sabotaged analogy coming up? No, okay, you know, like when and I had to place this old woman. You know, like when women choose a toxic relationship, Like it's easy to choose a toxic relationship because you know subconsciously it's going to fail and not going to go anywhere, so

And thank you for doing the work already, because you were already doing it. We wouldn't even be in this fucking room right now if you weren't doing.

The work fucking right Thank you for doing the work so we could be in this fucking room.

I just thought, tell where you're at, you're doing it, you're doing it, and the and the reality is it's gonna it has to organically.

This really became a freaking mirred intervention. That's what every show.

But you always preface that you're afraid of something. That's we've had this discussion number of times books. Man, I'm sorry, I know, but I don't know. I don't feel like knowing you as a person, would think that you're afraid of anything. Yeah, it just seems like more of like an opportunity that you.

Just need to think of a more competent person to carry that out.

I'm afraid a lot, I but I'm also wise enough, as I've staying in other episodes, I'm wise enough to listen to my ledge talkers, you know, and despite whatever the fault leader jokes that you guys have, I mean, so wait a minute, the reason why Bill is here leading as a producer, even though you know he's a musical genius and all that stuff and his organization, I'm just saying that I trust you enough and your musical wisdom to also not kiss my I mean, because it's

So then we need to write.

So we need to write ears and the right coaches around us to manage our expectations.

That's how you said you just need you need in it.

You need what I call in life, you need as oh what what's that? A non nigga advice? You need some when you there you just write, you just need when you're like, yo, son, what you think, nigga? You need your nigga advises to keep it with you?

Did you come up with that on your own? Sous?

We have?

All right? Quick? What good kissing man? I wouldn't I sh on the album? What is up? All right? All right? Record? What is that? With a string of singles that you put It's almost like Gangster with BBD, like these really good singles that didn't quite make the record, like.

Okay, well, what happened was good?

Canser was a great I love that.

What had happened was this.

I started working on the album and my son almost drowned the day that I started working on it. Right, So the album that I was working on then stopped, and then I started back up, and then I had to shoot a movie. And then in the middle of shoot Roberto durm movie, right, and then I decided to take a quick moment and I went to the voice and I did I did that. So all of these moments that stopped in between created like a different spot.

Rather I write it, or rather I collaborate and write it.

Because the second single was she Came to Give It to You with with for Real, and I performed that record on MTV. You know, part of it was I'm not I'm not sure. I'm not sure it was. It was the record that everybody wanted.

Right that one was to me, that one felt like a post blurred lines.

It was kind of like that was It felt like for real, kind of hell I left in the tank.

That's weird because as a DJ, I cherish any song in the key of E minor that's one hundred and nineteen bpms. That's very.

No.

But that's how things okay. It's like, she came to give it to you is my okay, I need a one to twenty year that's an E minor that will lead me to a different Well, long story short, I still spent it to that.

That was such a that was such a disconnecting between the work that I was working on there and then where the album went. That in telling that story, it just felt like it stuck out like a sore thumb. It had already served its purpose. It was a hit record. People liked it, it did get I mean, I don't know if it was as big of a hit as I wanted it to be, but it was a number one record.

And what is a hit for you? Now in light of in the age of like, does confessions even exist to you anymore?

Is it just like what do you mean which aspect of confession?

Well, I just feel now that you're about making artistic statements more than dealing with man, I got it.

The only way to make a cohesive Okay, no, no, I'm gonna answer your question. It does not matter to me to make a record that is like confessions, like I need to have confessions because confessions is never going to happen again.

It is what it is.

It was for that moment. Jermaine Dupree and all of the producers who were part of it were right where they needed to be and right at that moment. And I can't go back and get that. But what I can do is move to the next chapter and do something that feels like a cohesive body of work, that is valuable, that feels musical, that feels like it's leading that feels like it's.

It's pushing the lines.

It is.

And by the way, the idea of what music is for me now has expanded. Like, Okay, some people may like, you know, the older records that I did, but then there's some people that like some of the new shit that I do too. They like DJ got Us, fall in Love, they like OMG, and they like the original version of it too, of Quesse, you know what I'm saying.

So it's like shots fire, shots fire.

So but my point is it's like, so now I'm forced with the reality that I have a stadium of people waiting to come, and I don't have music to serve everybody.

Right now.

I only have one record that works here, one record that works there. And while we're in a time where I can't put out a song here, a song there, and it's fragmented. That's the reality of where we are, you know what I'm saying. Like, Unfortunately, even if people have an entire holbum, the people listen to a single they like this song, that song, and you don't even know what album it comes from. So what's necessary, what's necessary to create a cohesive body of.

Work that from the beginning of the beginning to end. You feel the connection.

It might feel like it's a little bit rocky and all over the place, and text is taken from all over the place, but it's a cohesive body of work, meaning we need to go get in the studio, lock the door, bring in our interne what do you say, bringing your inna board. And it's just because there's a couple of them, you know what I'm saying. Because there's a lot of perspectives to be considered, and it is

Well, mister Raymond the fourth, I know this was painful. No, I wasn't.

Actually I really enjoyed it.

You must have because from yeah, I'm sorry, I lie to you time of the time of the hour. I told you how it's gonna be like forty five minutes to an hour. Nothing.

He'sbing his head. He's not looking at you right now, attention his head.

No, but thank you very much. I share I hope for a great fruitful relationship, uh in which we listen to it is like speed dating.

Wait to see what y'all do.

No, I mean, come on, man, it's not pressure. It's like it's just well I can imagine.

I won't say it's not pressure, but we have confidence that this ship would be dope based on your record and your record.

It's not like y'all going to make a just good friends, you know what I mean? It's that should be the closing song, right right? Or get it? I like getting no, No, you don't like get it? Hell no, there we go.

Like Michael Jackson, Steve never made record toge besides help it, they knocked it out the part, but get it and just good friends.

It takes a little bit more discipline on your part, right to just.

Get prepared and then and then you know, let it happen because I can carry it out, you know what I'm saying.

I can carry it away.

And some of the ideas and the things that I think we should add in are gonna be foreign to people. It's gonna feel odd when they first hear. It's gonna feel they're gonna feel some connection to it, but they're not gonna know what it is. They're not gonna know why they are moving the way that they're moving. They're not going to understand that it's something different. It's something that's intended to nurture their soul. They don't get it.

Nurture soul. I love those two words together.

Uh this this is the wrap of the show.

But I'm telling you because I'm speaking into existence until it happens.

It's what did you learn? Brother?

Yo?

Man?

I learned as a real dude. Man.

One last question your studio session residents, No no, no question, your real question, your food exit shot my man exit mark exit good child.

Uh a record engineer.

He was telling me about your studio session rider and what you eat in the studio, Like like apparently your ship is like crazy discipline.

Like what do you eat? We just stopped by dunking dinners before the interview ahead now, but.

I eat fruit. I like vegetables. You know what I'm saying.

It's like bell peppers, broccoli, spinach, beats. Uh Like yeah, it's boring and ship, but but what's crazy is that that keeps you. It's a lot, man, and you get beneath the apple bam.

Hey, but I've learned that's the best dessert.

Anywhere.

I've learned that usher is like, you know a real dude and listens to his story, there's a lot of similarities and my story as a young kid growing up in the South, and I'm just happy to just be able to see a job of that with you.

I'm a fan and you know, always support what you do with it. He appreciate your brother for real.

Thank you man.

What did you learn?

It's been an amazing ride growing up with you number one, because that's how it feels that way, uh, and to see your evolution. But I also learned that, like Usher, is not only hella woke, but hella up to doing something about it. And I know that you're very community active, but you just took it to another level tonight.

And so I'm just letting you know with some soldiers out here, be ready.

That's all. That's what I learned to I'm going to move my money to a black bank as well.

Well fine is in industrial. Would you need some suggestions?

Hey?

Yeah, Wait, why are you looking at me like.

You said you needed back bank. I was just saying, I got some suggestions.

Okay, and I'm going to take your suggestions when we off the air. So these niggas don't know what my money. You know what I'm saying, Bill? Oh what did I learn? Yeah, so what did you learn today?

I hate I don't want to say that I learned something, But it's just always refreshing when you meet somebody like Usher, someone in his status, and you realize that they're not crazy and they're not they're actually down to earth, and you know, like.

Every reason not to be Yeah, it has everything, like a million records, like, yeah, i'd be completely You wouldn't want to be around me. If I sold thirteen million or thirteen million rerecord, I couldn't.

Tell you nothing. Six now, you couldn't you. You couldn't tell me if I sold six hundred rerecor now sixty eight sixty eight eight million, million, sixty eight million worldwide.

He is one of the top Billboard artists up the center something like that. I know it's twenty five something.

The numbers don't lie. Yeah, so that's how do you stay humble? Man? This is I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

Ain't doing it?

Fired all right, unpaid bill?

Uh.

I think Usher and I are about the same age, and I was just sort of wondering the whole time what the hell I was doing. I was fifteen, right, and uh and Uh, it wasn't that. It wasn't what Usher was doing. And Usher, I don't know if you know this. We've worked tangentially on a number of different things Sesme Street and the otherwise, and we've never actually met Street. He was He's sang the ABC's like motherfucker. It's one of the coolest things in many years i've worked there.

That's great. Yeah, but on paid Bill has a lot of jobs to one of them is being a key Sesame Street songwriters.

Yeah, that sounds terrible, I would get but it makes sound like I have an ego. So that's great. Thank you very much for that. But it's it's very humbling to beach as well.

All Right, the ABC, the movie you should it should definitely have wanted something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sugar Steve, what did you learn? Bro? First of all, I think I know better.

I think I worked with him had electrically back in the early two thousands. I can't I'm trying to remember what project it was. But it's a terribly interesting story

A lot of work, but just to add on something after seeing the Roots in Usher perform at Brooklyn Bowl, Like, however, many months ago, i'd buy an album of just you guys, you know, doing the old thing.

Yeah, that was that was my question, that can be is it gonna be? I was going to say, I felt like we always cut me off when I'm trying to say.

No, I was.

I was wondering, if you imagine you're clearly imagining original material for the for an album.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's gotta be original, you know.

And maybe there are moments where maybe there's a song that that's so significant that we have to remake it and do it in a way that makes it feel like it was done for the first time by us.

But it would be nice to have to have didn't you record that Brooklyn Bowl show? Like yeah, yeah, be nice to you want to put that out available, But we could in case we get we can.

Set the stage similar to the Picnic, which did brook Ball.

It was tighter though.

Yeah, well well okay we might leave with a taste of what we're doing. Let's do that. Yes, but yes, I mean there's there's the stuff is properly recorded on two inch tape. And you know, I have to say that what you what you won't know about Boss Bill or Frante is that, you know, we all come from the Okay player community and uh, you know, I kind of felt that Bill was losing losing faith in us for a good decade or so. But in the roots, well yeah, I mean, it's not like we could surprise