Smooth Operator

“Music is an interpretation of what we experience, where we go, and the things that we are motivated by. Sometimes it’s a club. Sometimes it’s life and love.”

Let the record show that I’m not the most bashful woman on the planet. In fact, I haven’t been embarrassed since the age of 9, and even then it was only because I fluffed my words in the Christmas play.
This is the story of how pop star Usher made me blush. Four times.
I meet the impeccable creature in the press room at the O2, having waited four hours for him to finish doing his hair. He says “hello”, clasps my hand and calls me “Sweetie”. Blush One. Next, he gestures to a space on the edge of a black leather couch. This, it seems, is where I’m supposed to sit. Still trying to regain decorum from Blush One, I park myself in what I’m convinced is a very commanding and authoritative pose. He produces a stool from somewhere and perches it right in front of me, so that when he sinks into it, his knee is pretty much parallel with my chin. Blush Two. He leans forward, as if to peer down at me, but he’s wearing a pair of fuck-right-off reflective shades, so I can’t be sure. “Your glasses are kind of throwing me off,” I say. I’m joking, but he still grins and removes them. Blush Three. “So,” he says, barely stirring, “Are you ready for an incredible night tonight?” Kablooie.
Realising that he’s talking about his sold-out O2 show, and probably not a magical evening of lovemaking, I tell him that actually, I’ve been waiting a good 15 years to see him live. No one’s pulse raced faster than mine when baby-faced, Adonis-bodied Usher Terry Raymond IV crash-landed onto MTV in 1997 with R&B masterstroke ‘You Make Me Wanna’. The hopelessly slick pseudo love song was based in a moment of frustrated indecision, as a barely-legal Usher contemplated leaving his girlfriend for another woman. Even the hook was a pick-up line – “You make me wanna leave the one I’m with/And start a new relationship with you” – and it was the perfect introduction to the man who would become pop’s most notorious smooth-talking bad boy.
Back in the O2, Usher assures me that his all-gyrating, all-moonwalking show will be well worth the wait.
“It’s gonna be amazing,” he says, without the slightest tremble of modesty. “I don’t remember where we played the last time I was here, but I do remember that they wanted me back! And I wasn’t single, so it’s a bit different this time!”
Gonna score himself some Celtic tail, eh?
“I’m always looking,” he purrs. “I’ve got my eyes wide open.”
I suggest that Irish women might not be smooth enough for the irrepressible Mr. Raymond.
“Nah! I love it!” he beams. “I love the accent!”
And there you have it. As if being a phenomenal dancer and a consummate showman isn’t enough, Usher could probably seduce his way out of Alcatraz. Then again, I’d be worried if the 32-year-old didn’t display preposterous levels of confidence. At 18 he was playfully putting his hands in places he’d never seen (his words, not mine, as panted out on 1998’s sex jam ‘Nice And Slow’), but by 23 he was bringing girls to earth-shattering climax on record. It’s easy to write off a musician who’s obsessed with making songs to knock boots to, but Mr. Raymond is quick to point out that he’s simply following in the footsteps of icons like Teddy Pendergrass, Marvin Gaye and Luther Vandross.
“I wouldn’t be the man I am, I wouldn’t be the artist that I am, without the shoulders that I stood on,” he beams. “I stand on the shoulders of giants like James Brown, like Bobby Brown, believe it or not, like Freddie Jackson...”
Of course, beneath all that rump-shaking testosterone, there’s an astounding voice that’s all too often overlooked. Usher’s range spans three octaves, placing him on even pegging with celebrated vocalists like Alicia Keys, Aretha Franklin and Freddy Mercury (he later gives me an impromptu snippet of ‘OMG’, so I can confirm that it’s not the work of smoke or mirrors). His 8701 album served as an introduction to his sky-scraping croon – Justin Timberlake’s solo career simply wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the record – and showed that there was more to this player than talking about creeping around on his shorty.
Usher stresses that his obsession with the male vocal didn’t start in his twenties. “I can recall,” he says, “listening to Stevie Wonder as a kid and saying, ‘Where was he when he created this record? What motivated him to say this? What things did he feel that made him write this song?’”
For a minute, I forget that Usher’s not my best mate, slap him on the knee (it’s right there beside my chin, remember), and tell him he should get himself a copy of Still Bill, a 2009 documentary about soul legend Bill Withers.
“Still Bill? I’ll check it out,” he nods.
Bizzarely, Usher often speaks like he’s narrating a documentary of his own, charging along in one continuous hypnotic monologue.
“My lifestyle dictates change,” he muses, “the places I go, the things I see, the art I see, the people I talk to, the company I keep.”
Whoever’s company he’s keeping these days, one thing’s for sure – pouring his heart out on wax works for the Tennessee lad. His biggest-selling album to date is sultry 20-track soap opera Confessions, which was based on his highly-publicised split with Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas of girl group TLC.
“I cheated on her,” he told Teenmusic.com upon the album’s release in 2004, “she didn’t catch me cheating or anything. It’s something that I chose to tell her.”
In the same interview, he denied rumours of an illegitimate child with the other woman, something that was heavily suggested by the “Just when I thought I said all I could say/My chick on the side said she got one on the way” line in the record’s title-track.
“Your experiences…” he observes, “you either accept them or you run away from them. If something is good for you, you take it in, if something isn’t, then you reject it.”
Since he laid down Round One of his confessions, fans and media hounds alike can’t get enough of the roguish singer’s sexual exploits, from his brief affair with Naomi Campbell (it reportedly ended because he was “bored” of the supermodel) to his marriage to his stylist Tameka Foster, eight years his senior. They separated after just a year, but have two children together, Usher V and Naviyd Eli. Usher Senior was certainly out to push buttons with his sixth album, the provocatively-titled Raymond V Raymond.
“There’s a double entendre associated with the name, of course!” he dismisses, “I knew that people would only assume that I was talking about my marriage. But I actually came up with the name before I had even filed for divorce. I feel like, at the time, it was an internal conflict between what I thought that I should be doing and what I actually intended to do, as a person.
“I was torn between two different worlds,” he remembers. “I was a new father. First time married. First time really being away from the structure and the comfort zone that I was raised accustomed to, but that was something beautiful that was happening. Really, a transition to this new place, this new space. Me awakening my creative ear to reach far beyond what my own knowledge of music was, creating sounds like ‘OMG’ and working with producers like (Dr.) Luke and Max (Martin), that really was like a new territory for me. I began to look at things on a very international level. I became more internationally accepted on this record and that I’m very appreciative of. I’ve been in places in Dublin before, and to see the reaction then and now, it’s great.
“But you can get too caught up in what the name of the album is! If you look at artists like David Bowie and U2, Bono’s philanthropic efforts far, far, far exceed what he does as an artist, but he finds inspiration in it and it keeps him linked to life.”
And what keeps Usher linked to life?
He doesn’t hesitate.
“My children. The one thing that helps to balance it all is my children. They bring me back to singing no matter what.”
Raymond V Raymond has sold over a million copies in the US alone, he’s making many a pretty penny from wide-eyed hit factory Justin Bieber, who he signed in 2009, and his four-hour hairstyle is holding up pretty damn well. Not only that, but he’s just developed a brand new music genre with David Guetta and Akon – it’s called rev pop and it claims to bridge the gap between urban and electronic music. You could say things are looking good.
“It was like a coup d’état,” he says, speaking about the formation of rev. “The only way I can make you understand it is, it’s like I broke away from my own comfort zone and created a new magic.
“I travel all around the world, so I try to absorb as much as I can and process it and regurgitate it in a way that I think is palatable, so that people can find something that they love in it. Life is about balance, and rev is the co-mingling of relevant sound and soul together. That’s what rev is. But that’s what life is. Life is Raymond V Raymond. Life is all about finding the tempo.”
The idea of marrying hip hop and electronica is hardly new. Did he get some odd looks when he first started shouting out to his new genre?
“People were a little skeptical,” he admits. “When I began to release the record people didn’t understand it – ‘What is it? What’s going on?’ – but then it began to become successful and at that point people really got it. They stopped looking at the way I was dressing, how I wear my hair, the type of things I would say, the way I conducted myself.”
From ‘90s slow jams to cutting edge floorfillers, Usher’s music has always had an element of futurism to it, and having conquered the all-important European dance thump this year with super smash ‘DJ Got Us Fallin’ In Love’, there’s really no way of knowing where Usher’s career will go from here.
“Music is supposed to be intriguing,” he grins.
The question mark is crucial.
“Exactly. It’s not an easy thing. It’s a complicated thing to do and it’s probably taken much too lightly these days – the creation of it, who should articulate it and the artists that should be put on a pedestal to lead it. I don’t take it for granted and I don’t take it lightly. The responsibility that I have on my shoulders is one that’s great.”
You bet your blinged-out Rolex it is. Since the passing of his friend and mentor Michael Jackson, Usher is the biggest song and dance man in popular music. But there’s no need for me to bring up the King Of Pop tonight – it seems that 18 months after his controversial death, Jackson is still on his protégé’s mind.
“I’m from America but I’ve travelled all around the world. If I only made music as an American artist, where would my career be in time? You have to be mindful of what the world’s saying but at the same time still keeping the integrity, which is soul. And when I say soul I mean vocalising and articulating yourself through melody. Music that’s sung in a soulful way, not just a standard, traditional, commercial way of singing. Michael taught me that.”
I suggest that it’s equally important to have someone like Beiber to pass the wisdom onto.
“Absolutely!” he grins. “Every parent has its child.”
Speaking of Generation Z, Usher’s got a couple of thousand impressionable pre-teens waiting for him in the next room, and those special new feelings aren’t gonna administer themselves, so I had better wrap things up.
As Mr. Raymond takes off towards the stage, I overhear him mumbling something to his ginormous, humourless bodyguard. “Still Bill,” he repeats. “It’s a Bill Withers documentary…”
I guess even superstars have to do their homework.

Raymond V Raymond and the Versus EP are out now on Sony. See hotpress.com for archive reviews.