USHER RAYMOND'S viral NPR Tiny Desk settled what needed no debate. The Atlanta R&B veteran with the golden falsetto and stellar dance moves hasn't lost luster as a performer in the quarter-century since he spelled his name in 1997's "Nice and Slow." His catalogue is timeless and Teflon: nine No. 1 songs, platinum-selling hits in three different decades, a diamond-certified classic in 2004's Confessions. And yet Usher's meteoric career has often confounded audiences-first as a 14-year-old singing about mature themes, then when he married hip-hop production, and later EDM, with raw emotion. As he begins a new Las Vegas residency, one that venerates every stage of his trendsetting, Usher is garrulous and also unafraid to say he revolutionized some shit.
Most enduring memory of recording 1994's Usher with Diddy
I arrived different, the same way Aaliyah and Brandy did. I wasn't intended to make music that was just for kids. The culture, how we were moving and living, was different. Now, I can't necessarily say those songs were as successful as my future records, but I think Puffy was toying with something that was creating a new frontier. He pulled all of the strings: Al B. Sure!, Kyle West, Faith Evans. I had Jodeci singing background vocals on the first single, "Can U Get Wit It." It felt good to be welcomed by the guys who were running hip-hop and R&B. But that wasn't traditionally how you launched an R&B artist. Puff was trying to break the mold. All the people I work with are trying to do something that hasn't been done before.
Biggest musical inspirations
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 01 - 14, 2022-Ausgabe von New York magazine.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 01 - 14, 2022-Ausgabe von New York magazine.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
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The Water-Tower Penthouse
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