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Usher’s Biggest Songs and Career Highlights: A Super Bowl Guide

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The singer will perform at halftime of the N.F.L.’s championship game in Las Vegas on the heels of his popular career-spanning residency and the release of a new album.

Usher’s “My Way” residency, which began in 2021 in Las Vegas (the town where Frank Sinatra himself once gallivanted), had the R&B singer courting celebrities and viral social media moments for 100 consecutive sold-out shows. The staging was energetic, replete with roller skates and stripper poles.

But spectacle wasn’t the only draw. Usher, 45, used the retrospective to showcase the hallmarks of his 30-year music career: pristine vocals, polished but effortless dance moves and heart-melting charm in the tradition of his idols Sammy Davis Jr. and Ben Vereen, his godfather. It’s appropriate, then, that on Feb. 11 the eight-time Grammy winner will perform the halftime show at Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, days after he’s slated to release his ninth studio album “Coming Home,” which he called a “love letter to the legacy of my career.” Here are the eras that have defined Usher’s career.

1988-1994

After starting out in his church choir, Usher began singing professionally at age 10 with an R&B group in his hometown, Chattanooga, Tenn. A solo performance on “Star Search” in 1991 landed him an audition with the LaFace Records co-founder L.A. Reid, who signed him to the label based in Atlanta. Usher moved there at age 12 and worked under the tutelage of producer Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, who had developed Jodeci and Mary J. Blige.

5 Essential Usher Songs

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    You Make Me Wanna… (1997)

    Usher

    The first single from his earliest collaboration with the producer Jermaine Dupri, “My Way” shows the hallmarks of their decades-long partnership: a mid-tempo, bouncing track about relationship woes that leaves room for a dance breakdown that defined the song’s video.Full track

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    Yeah! (2004)

    Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris

    Usher’s longest-charting No. 1 hit, “Yeah!”, which spent 12 weeks in the top spot, was a late add to “Confessions” after the Arista label boss L.A. Reid asked the artist and Dupri to craft a lead single for the album. The result was this eminently danceable Crunk-n-B track with fellow Atlanta artists Lil Jon and Ludacris.Full track

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    Confessions Part II (2004)

    Usher

    Usher wrote this magnus opus of cheating alongside Dupri and Bryan Michael-Cox, weaving a soap opera of infidelity over a sparse drum loop, programmed handclaps and a lilting guitar riff. The single became the third of four No. 1 hits from the album “Confessions.”Full track

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    Love in This Club (2008)

    Usher featuring Young Jeezy

    This paean to the bottle service era sees Usher delivering silky R&B seduction over synth-driven production and 808 drums, presaging his later forays into electronic dance music. Jeezy’s cocksure cameo verse turns the smoothly libidinous invitation into a full-on dare. Full track

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    Climax (2012)

    Usher

    Though it wasn’t the first of Usher’s pop-leaning EDM collaborations – “OMG” featuring Will.i.am and “Without You” with David Guetta came before – “Climax” was his best marriage of the form, featuring a powerhouse vocal that swells and dives as he laments a love that’s “going nowhere fast.”Full track

Track previews and album art courtesy of

Spotify.

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Source: Music - nytimes.com

Tagcloud: Coming Home (Album)Confessions (Album)Pop and Rock MusicRhythm and Blues (Music)Super BowlUsher

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