The Real King Of Hip-Pop

07/27/2001 4:00 PM, LAUNCH
Jeff Lorez

Usher leans back on the crushed-velvet chair in his midtown Manhattan hotel room, pops another M&M, and tells me confidently, "There's only one Usher." It may seem a touch arrogant, but in all fairness, this response comes after I ask him about the meteoric success of the all-singing, all-dancing new prince of R&B, Sisqo. Doesn't Usher feel the Baltimore native has stolen his thunder? As if to convince himself as much as convince me, Usher again repeats his statement. "There's only one Usher."

Truth is, in today's multimedia-friendly R&B arena, there's room for both of them--and Ginuwine, too. It was Usher, however, with his breakthrough second album My Way, that really made it possible for male R&B singers to go multiplatinum and cross over into television and film (Moesha, The Faculty, Light It Up, She's All That)--a path only previously traversed by male rappers, like Ice Cube and Will Smith, or female R&B singers like Brandy and Aaliyah. In fact, now it's almost required that one have a few notable acting credits on one's résumé in order to be considered a true R&B success.

But today, Usher is putting his thespian pursuits on the back burner, as he's in town to promote not a new movie but his new album, 8701. His attire makes it clear what his true profession is: fresh out-tha-box Nikes, baggy leather trousers (tied up high around the right leg with a Wu-Tang bandana), tight wife-beater tank, and black skullcap. For embellishments, there's a tattoo strategically placed on his exposed right calf and an assortment of garish, bling bling jewelry. Add to that a newly buffed, LL-in-the-making physique (cultivated through a regimen of swimming and weightlifting), and Usher deserves to go double-platinum on image alone. But what about the music?

"I didn't want to consume myself with making songs that could compete with the last album," he says when asked if he felt any pressure in the studio this time around. "I just wanted to concern myself with making music that would feel good, and that I think other people would like. Plus with the producers I've got, Jermaine [Dupri--responsible for sculpting Usher's last album], She'kspere [who co-penned the track "Pop Ya Collar" with artist/writer/former Xscape member Kandi Burruss], Mike City [Carl Thomas's "I Wish"], Soulshock & Karlin [Whitney Houston's "Heartbreak Hotel"], and Babyface, how could I go wrong? There's a real evolvement from the last record to this one. I didn't have a lot of say-so last time, but now I'm involved 100 percent. I'm the executive producer; I write and produce on there. I knew exactly what I wanted."

When asked how he defines his sound, Usher again brims with the confidence of a 21-year-old multimillionaire with the world at his feet: "I'm a rapper/singer, y'dig? I'm the king of hip-pop."

There's little doubting the infectiousness of his new set's material. Take "Pop Ya Collar," in which a stuttered hip-hop beat and subtle Rhodes synth lines underplay Usher's soulful, energetic delivery of Burruss's lyrics about self-pride and motivation in the face of player-haters. Of the song's odd title, Usher says, "It's catchy lingo. That's what we do in Atlanta [home of both Usher and the songwriters], is create styles. It's sort of an edgy statement for people who know what it means, but I want to make it so that everyone could be a part of it."

Another intriguing title is the Dupri-produced "TTP," which, Usher explains, "stands for The Total Package." So, judging from the lyrics, is it safe to say Usher's found his own TTP? Or will music always be his first love?

"I'm a hard guy to get along with in a relationship," he admits, "because I'm so focused on my music. It's like my mistress. I'm like, 'I can't talk to you right now, I'm in the studio. I can't talk to you right now, I'm in an interview. I can't talk to you right now, I'm writing lyrics.' It's tough on a woman, because she demands time, and rightly so. I was in and out of a relationship when I was recording this album. But it always has and always will be about the music for me. Music's there when no one else is around. It's there when I'm happy, when I'm sad. That's how I look at it. It's a person with a soul, and it never lets me down."

Music has been there for Usher Raymond in his darkest times, ever since he was a child being raised by his choir-director mother in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A teen winner on the TV talent competition Star Search, at age 13 he was introduced to LaFace Records heads L.A. Reid and Babyface, and at 14 he released his self-titled debut album, produced largely by Puff Daddy. But when the album was a commercial failure, Usher's teen dreams came crashing down: His onetime mentor Puffy was suddenly "too busy" to help him record his sophomore album, and to make matters worse, puberty was causing his voice to change. Suddenly, this promising new R&B talent had morphed from a cute boy-next-door to an awkward, lanky adolescent with an unpredictable voice, not to mention a flop album under his belt.

"My biggest heartbreak I felt was being abandoned," Usher says somberly of the experience, without mentioning P. Diddy by name. "A lot of the lessons you learn later on in life, I learned at an early age. When I was 15, I knew what it was to be a man. If you don't have a successful record, people start to doubt you. At one point in time, I felt like didn't nobody care about me. I had lost my voice, and was at my lowest point."

But then Jermaine Dupri stepped in where Puffy left off, and with My Way, the once cherubic pre-pubescent became a honed, toned, hip-thrusting megastar. In light of this ascendance, a movie career seemed a natural next step. "You have a better chance at longevity if you spread yourself out," notes Usher. "[But] not to the point where you spread yourself too thin that you can't pay attention to quality."

Usher looks up to Will Smith and Madonna as role models who've managed to do both music and movies and stay on top of the game. He says of Ms. Ciccone-Ritchie, "She's always changing and evolving, like me. I'm just a male version of her." I tell him that seems like a good concept in theory, but in practice, surely the rules that apply to black artists attempting to cross over into the mainstream and white artists--who, essentially, are already crossed over--can be quite different.

"Yeah, it is harder for black artists," Usher concedes. "In a way, you can come across as being corny, because your audience isn't always so open-minded. That's why I'm trying to bring together the acting and singing in a way that will tear down that barrier of stereotypical thinking. Little kids in the ghetto need to have vocabulary, they need to know about Fred Astaire and Sammy Davis Jr. They need to know that there's an art to this that comes from a deep root."

Usher aims to practice what he preaches with a role alongside James Van Der Beek, Rachael Leigh Cook, and Dylan McDermott in the movie Texas Rangers, in which he plays a cowboy. "The worst thing that people can do is expect to come to the movie and see Usher, the pop star," he warns. "I want people to be able to get into the character. I did a lot of research for the role about black cowboys, as well as working on the speech, to reflect how people spoke back in that time."

His immediate goal, however, is to reclaim his R&B throne. Don't get it twisted: Usher may be Hollywood, and he may have been groomed on the plush-carpeted, platinum-album-lined corridors of LaFace Records (as opposed to the rough-and-tumble streets of the ghetto), but he wants you to know he's the real deal.

"I've been singing on stages since the age of 12, and now I'm 21," he stresses. "I'm not new to this--I've been through a lot. It's always been music first. I'm a B-boy till I die."