Usher celebrates 30 years of music with new tour, concert film: ‘I’m only getting better with time’

It’s a good time to be Usher.

And nobody knows that more than the 45-year-old R&B superstar, who strolls into the room at the New York Edition hotel — dressed in a black sweater and matching pants — with the content, confident chill of a man in his moment.

“A lot has changed,” Usher told The Post in an exclusive interview for our “Music to My Years” video series.

Indeed, 2024 has been the Year of Usher. He started it off with releasing his first solo album in eight years, “Coming Home,” just two days before headlining the Super Bowl halftime show.

Then last month Usher launched his Past Present Future Tour, which just finished four sold-out dates at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. And he’ll be bringing his show to the big screen with “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris,” his concert film that has an exclusive run in AMC Theatres Sept. 12-15.

All of this comes 30 years after Usher Raymond IV made his self-titled debut as a 15-year-old signed to LaFace Records — the label behind TLC, Toni Braxton and Outkast — on Aug. 30, 1994.

“It felt good to actually perform on the day I actually made my first offering to the world,” said Usher of the Philadelphia concert on the 30th anniversary of his album debut. “It felt really good to look up at the screen and see what I saw … to be able to look at my younger self and remember the same energy, look at some of the photographs and things that I share within Past Present Future.

“It just really felt overwhelming,” he continued. “I was overwhelmed with joy and appreciation, man, that 30 years later I’m doing this and I’m still feeling creative, I’m still feeling excited about it, I feel passionate about it. And obviously people are enjoying it.”

As a teenager, Usher was already manifesting this and other major moments in a three-decade career that has made him his generation’s King of R&B — from slow jams such as “Nice & Slow,” “U Got It Bad” and “Burn” to party bangers such as “Love in This Club,” “OMG” and, of course, “Yeah!”

“What was going through my head was the destination,” recalled Usher. “I think at some point we all have to have an imagination and a dream of what it could be.

“And me chasing that dream, me in my mind seeing an audience that would greet me and know my name and know my songs and sing and dance and feel love and passion and all of those things is what I was always thinking about. The rest of it would become the journey.”

Usher would journey from Atlanta to New York to record his eponymous debut LP, which featured “Think of You” — the first of his 29 Top 10 R&B singles — and was executive-produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs.

“The first time ever being in New York City … amazing memories there,” he said. “The things I saw, the people I was able to be around, the experiences that I was able to have coming from Atlanta, Georgia — or before that, Chattanooga, Tennessee — it was a bit shocking, but it prepared me.

“It prepared me for the creativity, it prepared me for the vulnerability, the expression, because people just moved differently in New York than what I saw in Atlanta. So much so that I gained the confidence to then go back to Atlanta and know with certainty, ‘Oh — got it! This is how I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna now do it my way.’ ”

Indeed, Usher’s second album, 1997’s “My Way” — led by the hit single “You Make Me Wanna…” — propelled the young singer to new heights that would peak with his 2004 blockbuster “Confessions,” which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The LP — featuring the hits “Burn,” “Confessions Part II,” “My Boo” “Caught Up” and its signature smash “Yeah!” — sold 1.1 million copies in its first week and went on to be certified 14-times platinum.

With Usher “sharing very intimate details about my life,” “Confessions” lived up to its title. “It wasn’t until later that I recognized, ‘Oh, it’s not until I actually tell my story that I really make a connection to people,’” he said. “And having that confidence that these stories are relevant in a way that will make people feel something.”

And those songs are still making fans feel it 20 years later on the Past Present Future Tour.

“Every night that I go out there and I hear them sing these songs as loud as they do, I realize how important those songs were,” said Usher. “I guess a classic record is a classic record, right?”

Those “Confessions” classics also come alive again in “Usher: Rendezvous in Paris,” which was filmed over his eight-show run at La Seine Musicale during Paris fashion week last fall. The movie — directed by Anthony Mandler, who went from doing the “Confessions” album photography to lensing music videos such as Usher’s “OMG” — transports his “My Way” Las Vegas residency to the City of Lights.

“After Las Vegas was an obvious success, I wanted to to do something that I felt would be special,” said Usher, whose Kingdom Films is one of the “Rendezvous in Paris” producers. “This was an opportunity for me to not only capture what I did in Las Vegas, but capture a moment in history, a moment in time.”

Usher says that he was “absolutely” inspired by the successful theatrical runs that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé had with their concert films last year. “Not often do we actually go to a concert and actually put our phones down and just look at the show,” he said, “and this environment is all about that connection.”

But despite all of these milestone moments — including receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BET Awards in June — this is not a career victory lap for Usher.

“I feel honored to be honored,” he said. “ I’ve put in a lot of work and a lot of time … These accolades and recognizable moments of honor represent a legacy.”

But 30 years after his debut, he’s not done yet: “The next 30 years look very promising … I’m only getting better with time.”