Usher Vs. Ursher
It’s just after 12:30 a.m. backstage at Dolby Live in Las Vegas when Usher and I sat across from one another in a snug dressing room. ‘Twas the night before an extended break in his residency, which probably explained his adrenaline rush. Wearing a red suit with a matching oxford shirt (the top two buttons were undone, exposing his signature layered chains) and cream-colored animal print loafers, he nursed a glass of cognac with one hand and smiled. He was comfortable—in his element.
“How are you?” I asked, both intrigued and genuinely curious. Gleefully, he replied, “I’m on cloud nine right now. I just wish I could live here longer, right?”
“In Vegas or in this moment?”
“No, in this moment,” Usher, 44, beamed softly. “It always takes getting back to the stage to remind me of why I do all of this. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the hard work. You know what I’m saying? But this [is] the part that makes it worth dreaming. [With] streams and the relevance of this industry, the gratification and appreciation for what you’re doing is not clear. When you see an audience member singing your songs while they’re celebrating, you giving them energy. That’s why I do it.”
See, there’s Ursher—the artist, the performer. Then there’s Usher Raymond IV—the father, partner, friend, son, brother. The former is a daring leader, committed to giving his fans the best in the ways that make sense to him. The latter is silly, charming, and relatively soft-spoken in a way that calms anxiety. He’s, in some ways, tangible.
The beloved superstar admitted that he finds himself battling between the two personas, but not in a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of way. He knows there’s a time and place for each side of himself, a level of awareness that transforms his approach.
“To be honest, I’m just trying to make sure that everything that comes out of my mouth is as authentic and real as possible,” he said. “That’s all that really matters. If you’re real about it, you’re just transparent, there’s something magical that happens in that moment. Most of the songs that I’ve done—[when] I was being that way—became something. The times when I was actually just having fun and just being authentic, that became something. I ain’t introverted in a way where I ain’t talking to you. It’s a real conversation. I’m really telling you the truth. And really just being transparent with you.”
It’s not easy being Usher—a confession made by the crooner himself. Let him tell it and he’ll label his life as “a very complicated situation.” Why? Because of the tensions between having it all and not doing enough.
“I try to give 100% of myself to everything. And it’s very difficult to do that—to be a 100% father, a 100% partner, a 100% best friend, a 100% son, a 100% brother, a 100% artist, a 100% creative, a 100% producer. It’s just, it’s a lot,” he rather somberly expressed. We reverted back to a statement he’d made when he first became a father in 2007 with his eldest child Usher Raymond V, affectionately known as Cinco. “The challenge is having it all,” he told VIBE in July of that year. Now, as a father of four, he’s thrown by the phrase of “having it all.”
Playing mental gymnastics with the remark, he repeated it before sharing his thoughts. “Having it all? Having… it… all… I don’t think any of us can have it all. I think that’s just an ambitious guy who’s new to the process and understands that this is an intimidating space to be in,” Usher began. “It’s like ‘I’ve got it all!’ Then, there’s more,” he said, laughing. “There’s more to go after. There’s new places to go, there’s new things to see. There’s more people to meet. There’s more things to create, more things to acquire, more places and things to celebrate. More reality and history to be informed of.”
In terms of “having it all,” Usher confesses, “I don’t know if I ever felt like I made it.” Even with Confessions earning a diamond certification? “That was nice. Thank you. Let’s keep moving,” he said casually of the feat. “Let’s figure out what the next step is. This way I would never feel the success of that moment is the only pinnacle. No, there’s always something more to do.”
For him, the goal is in flux. “I was setting new goals for myself. The journey is the goal for me.” The journey to get here—being the undisputed King of R&B, selling out Vegas for three consecutive years, adding two more kids to his family—though, was an uphill battle both professionally and personally. Funny enough, his most difficult lesson to navigate had nothing to do with his nearly-30-year career.
“I think the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do was be single.” We sat in a moment of silence, letting that sink in.
Sensing the obvious next question, he answered before it could be asked. “Because I don’t like to be alone,” Usher explained. “The idea of creating a life with someone is what I would like to do, maybe because I didn’t have or didn’t see that. And I get to remedy that idea by having an incredible partnership. I can then have the thing that I ultimately wanted to see. You know what I’m saying?”
After his whirlwind two-year stint with TLC’s Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas from 2001-2003, he had a tumultuous marriage to Tameka Foster from 2005-2009 that bore sons Cinco, now 15, and Naviyd, 14. By the time his massively-private relationship and subsequent three-year marriage to his former manager, Grace Harry, from 2009-2018 ended, one might’ve thought Usher’s love life was simply fodder for public consumption. These days, it seems he’s found a happy, healthy medium with partner Jennifer Goicoechea, with whom he shares a daughter and a son: Sovereign Bo, 2, and Sire Castrello, 1. Seeing the two interact is bliss. The record executive, 39, is kind and genuine. Together, they’re playful and compliment one another.
Sitting up a bit, he detailed the process of gaining such a fulfilling relationship. “Man, healing took a lot,” he began. “Maybe I was suffering a lot from—just maybe not necessarily having the kind of love that I would’ve wanted as a kid. And wanting to figure out what that was all about. I didn’t have that relationship that I would’ve wanted to have with my father. And that the relationship that I had with my mother was slowly beginning to be under pressure. Because one, we were working together. Two, we had our differences. Three, I was getting older, but I think it was just life lessons. The therapy really did help me be able to be by myself.”
He is the literal embodiment of his lyric, “I love love/ I’m just f**king bad at it.” Ask him if he still considers himself hard to love, and Usher coyly reverts, “You have to ask the people who love me.”
Do his older children understand the distinction between Ursher and Usher? He can’t confidently answer that. He was awarded full, primary custody of Cinco and Naviyd over a decade ago and has been trying to maintain an open relationship with the teenagers—an undertaking that is tough for any parent.
“I want them to know that they can talk to me, that I understand. I am hard on my kids because I only want them to be great and I want them to be accountable. And I want them to laugh. I want them to understand integrity because this life that they have access to as a result of the hard work that I put in, wasn’t given to me easy. So I want them to feel the same way about something, to be passionate about that,” he shared.
He toys with the thought of whether this life he’s afforded to his kids makes him cool to them, something he wants. “I struggle between whether I should be super cool with my kids or be the father?” he questions. “Or be aggressive? Or be the idea of what I think a man is for them? But sometimes it’s a little tough, you know what I’m saying? It’s tough love.”
Usher’s process of learning and unlearning is a daily unfolding. How his life has gone thus far has added to the level of transparency and honesty he has with his older children. Being able to share lessons on having an optimistic spirit, remaining hopeful, and fighting for greatness when the odds are stacked against him—that keeps him sane.
Luckily, the residency in Vegas actually aids in Usher remaining an active parent; there’s a successful balance of being with them while also doing what he loves nearby. Almost every night, he puts his young children to bed. “I can go right over to make sure they’re okay and then get my blood right back up and start to get ready for the show,” he confessed, a testament to his familial commitment.
But family wasn’t the sole reason he chose this path. Choosing to do a residency over a tour was also a means to reinvigorate his creative passion. “What I’ve done at my peak or at earlier peaking times, I just [wanted] to get back there first. I didn’t want to go rush and put an album out and go on tour. I wanted to come here [and] just find my excitement. Because to be honest, I’ve never thought of retiring in a real way. I might have thought, ‘Man, maybe I should just stop.’ But never really.” It’s been almost five years since his last album and seven years since his last tour.
Usher needed time—a gift that not many artists are graciously extended in the midst of popcorn culture and legacy acts fighting for relevance. On more than one occasion, Usher was even written off. It happened between his self-titled debut and My Way. It happened during his EDM/pop era. Now, that kind of talk is preposterous. He is King.
“When I came here it was like, ‘Yo, I really do get a chance to see it.’ And it excited me again. It made me love it in a way that I’ve not loved it in a long f**king time,” he beamed.
“I really look at this industry and I understand why people feel the way that they may feel about R&B, because it’s not enough of this, you know what I’m saying? Maybe it’s because it’s just easier to just do a radio show. And there’s not as many tours. I just want to go out there and I want to go train again and just have fun. I want to really, really enjoy myself. I ain’t out there because of my bills, I’m out there because I love it.” It’s all over his face. Even now, hours after the self-proclaimed “Usher Party” has ended, the excitement is still flowing through his veins.
Is this still adrenaline or a nod to his physical sustainability? It’s likely both. The singer is adamant about his healthy lifestyle that “caused [him] to tap into the family youth.” He meditates, does yoga, and works out daily. “You’ve got to treat yourself a little bit, but for the most part I work hard to make sure that I take care of myself,” he revealed. “When I think about Black men and the fact that there are health issues that start around 50, I’ve got to be prepared. I don’t want it to sneak up on me.”
His health isn’t his only concern. It’s Black men overall, which is why his new album is a transparent ode to them. In July 2022, he debuted a new record, “I Ain’t Gon’ Hold You,” during the opening night of his My Way residency. That track and others on the untitled LP “have an honesty that’s necessary for men.”
Without divulging, Usher explained, “I think that if we go back to the base of where it all comes from, we’re trying to be the best versions of what we didn’t understand. This ain’t even about music. It’s about life for men. There’s a truth in it because I think women will listen to it and be like, ‘I feel that way, too.’ I am speaking specifically to men or for men, though. I’m trying to make it clear that you’ve got to go through these things, and there’s nothing that we can do about it. Unfortunately, it’s the reality of what it is to be one. And we keep going through the same thing, we’re battling the same thing. Even if we’re happy, we’re battling the same issues, whether you choose to share it or not. We cope and deal with the same emotional stuff, we just don’t necessarily always have an outlet.”
His single, “GLU” (which also marks his directorial debut with its visual) is the beginning of that conversation. “I always try to make sure I create that dynamic in my music, to have a bit of conflict, even if it’s personal, to hopefully help you cope with whatever you’re dealing with, or navigate through it. [‘GLU’] sparked a lot of dialogue. And I’m just hoping that this song breaks a few barriers. I know that the entire album that I’m putting together is intended to do that, because I speak to two audiences [but] my audiences are not segregated; we actually party together.”
Ultimately, the King Of R&B hopes to create something that caters to the majority of his fans. Regarding the title that he’s toed the line of claiming, Usher shared, “I think the king establishes land and builds the culture, in the formal sense of what a king would be in history. So, for me, it’s not just about me. I’m a king by trait, if anything. My mom always said, ‘You ain’t got to claim it.’ And I don’t. But if you’ve been doing it for as long as I’ve been doing it…if you’re giving it to me, I’m taking it. And owning it is letting you know that it’s a matter of making sure that the world at large understands where it comes from and its authenticity.”
Will Usher’s next album be his most personal? He doesn’t know. He paused for what seemed like an eternity. “I’ve actually gotten to the place where I ain’t even thinking about what I’m doing. I’m just offering. I really wish that I knew,” he finally said.
Though the new album is not about making a hit record, it’s raw—but not in a shocking way like Confessions. He didn’t deny that there may be subtle elements, but no, that’s not deliberate. He just wants to be as honest as possible and make things, good things, that people love. A merger of Usher and Ursher—the man and the star, so to speak.
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