60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Yeah!”—Usher

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Rob examines the crossroads of Usher’s pop star persona and Lil Jon’s unique vocal and musical genius this week when taking a look back at the smash hit “Yeah!” (1:00). Then, he is joined by Clover Hope to talk about the construction of Usher’s career, the imagery and storytelling that went into making him more interesting to audiences, his staying power, and more (59:00). Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Clover Hope Producers: Jonathan Kermah, Justin Sayles, and Bobby Wagner Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salick, and I'm here to announce a brand new season of my Ringer original podcast, Bansplain, the show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists to you and yours. This time, babe, we're going across the pond. That's right, I'm absolutely chuffed to be talking about the music scenes of 80s and 90s Britain. I'm talking Mad Chester. I'm talking baggy. I'm talking Shugays. I'm talking Brit Popmate.

So tune in every Thursday starting November 7th for a new episode of Bansplaine on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. To quote Anchorman, he had a voice that could make a wolverine purr. To quote pride and prejudice, his countenance, voice, and manner had established him at once in the possession of every virtue. To quote, Rumi, stop the noise, and you will hear his voice in silence. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, he shouts loud at the top of his voice, I am I, me, me, I am. am I, and I may not know why, but I know that I like it. To quote the great Gatsby, he has the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. To quote Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 36, King James Version, out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee, and upon earth he shewed thee, his fire and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire. To quote the Odyssey, King Alcinus, it is a good thing to hear a bard with such a divine voice as this man has.

And to quote the man himself, what? His name is Jonathan H. Smith. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia on January 17th, 1972. He is a Capricorn. He grew up in a large part. He grew up in a part on punk rock. He got into skateboarding. He got into bad brains, the dead Kennedys, the faction, the misfits. He got into 80s live shows by Faith No More and the red hot chili peppers. He physically got into a great many mosh pits. But he loved rap music, too. NWA, E40, too short. As a student at Frederick Douglas High School in Atlanta, he says he listened to the Life Is Too Short album every day. But he loves Southern rap music, too. Atlanta bass music.

He was instrumental in bringing Atlanta bass music to the world. He got into DJing. He got into the music business. He got into A&R. He got into producing. And one night he got into Club 559, Atlanta's legendary club 559. And he's sitting at a table with 15 or so people.

And they all start spontaneously chanting, who you win, who you win. And suddenly everyone in the club is chanting, who you win, who you win, along with them. And in that moment, the world first truly heard the words of Lil John out of the midst of the fire. Freezo, freeze up, freezo, freeze up, freezo, freeze up, freezo, freezo. Bill John says that night, at that table at Club 559, he became an artist by accident.

He knew he had to make a record, a song called Who You Would, released in 1996. as the debut single from Lil John and the East Side Boys. The East Side Boys are Big Sam and Lilbo. That's East Side Boys with a Z. What do you call this sort of music? This combination of the call-and-response hookiness of rap music with the raw, heedless physicality of punk music, powered by short, pulverizing,

blunt force repetition phrases that slowly acquire the wisdom and power of Zen cones. Will John's got a suggestion. Get crunk Get crunk Get crum Get crum Get cron Get cron

Now of course Lil John did not invent This term Crunk Which had been banging around Atlanta And the larger

Southern rap lexicon For some time already Outcast Andre 3,000 wraps the word Crunk On the first Outcast album

On 1994's Southern Playlistic Cadillac music On Outcast's debut single, in fact, on Players Ball. If you recall Players Ball was originally

a Christmas song, but Outcasts were like, yeah, we don't want to do a Christmas song, which explains Andre's dismissive near reference to Silent Night and the official version of the song now. It's important context. So I begin to piece my two and two together. I got no snowy weather. I have to fight something to do better to bet. I said some chat, so shut up that.

No sense about some solid, solid. I got sick crook if it ain't real, ain't right? I'm like no matter. So yeah, that's cool. but you know the first person to use the term crunk in print? Look at that. Dr. Seuss. Yes, in his 1972 book Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now? One of the bitchier Dr. Seuss books, if we're being honest, like GTFO, the book.

Dr. Seuss deploys the term crunk car. Crunk-hyphen car. Why did Dr. Seuss name this particular vehicle a crunk car? He may not have known why. but he knew that he liked it. You can go on stills. You can go buy fish. You can go in a grunk car if you wish.

That's just a kid on YouTube reading Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now? Or perhaps it's an AI kid. I can't tell. It better not be AI. If you're curious what a crunk car looks like in the Dr. Seuss universe, in the book it's a blue roughly giraffe. sized contraption with two giant legs, two gears, two exhaust pipes, one giant lever, the gear shift, presumably, in a steering wheel. But it will fall to Lil John, accidental artist, to popularize

this term, Crunk, to rebrand it, to embody it, to expand its spiritual purview, and to introduce this revamped idea of Crunk to the wider world, i.e. white people. And he undertakes this project in artist on the debut album from Lil John and the East Side Boys released in 1997 and called Get Crunk Who You Witt the album. That's get crank comma who you wit colon the album.

We are already beginning to expand the spiritual purview of the word what as well. And from this moment forward Liljohn transforms himself into a pop star. Now, before we go any further, let's acknowledge an obvious personal dissonance between this person's voice and my voice between myself and Lil John. It may shock you to hear this, but I don't go to the club.

I don't go to the club. I am past the age at which one traditionally goes to the club. To be clear, I also did not go to the club even when I was at the age at which, one traditionally goes to the club, but I extra don't go to the club now. My current total absence from the club is more understandable. But so now, how can I properly describe and contextualize and celebrate music that was very, very, very clearly inspired by and designed for the club when I personally did not and do not go to the club? Well, recently, I decided to listen to this in the closest environment to the club that was readily accessible to me.

I replicated the ideal context for this music to the best of my ability. So what did I do? I'll tell you what I did. I put in my AirPods and I put on a four-hour crunk playlist while watching my oldest son's middle school wrestling match. Now, let's not belabor the many similarities between the club. in a middle school wrestling match. That song, of course, is Get Low from the 2002 Lil John

on the East Side Boys album, Kings of Crunk. This song, of course, features the Ying Yang Twins, the Atlanta duo of Kane and D-Rock. Though there are many similarities, yes, between the club and a middle school wrestling match, the tremendous and often quite awkward physicality, the disconcerting crush of bodies, the jumble of limbs, the cacophony of voices,

the preponderance of sweat, the confusing point system, the general confusion as to what one's ultimate goal might be and how that goal might be achieved, the especially baffling hand gestures, the energized and often downright rowdy spectators, the snack bar. I am presuming that the club is some sort of snack bar,

or at least you can buy chips at their regular bar. They got appetizers, jalapeno poppers, I don't know, sliders. I am speculating. obviously when it comes to certain aspects of the club. And I'm sitting there on the bleachers of some middle school and some part of Ohio I ain't ever been in, in some town I ain't ever even heard of.

And I got no idea how the sportive wrestling works exactly. And I got my AirPods going. And rowdy dudes from Atlanta are screaming, just riotously, unseemly shit directly into my ears and my ears alone. And I'm doing the thing I do, right? where I'm like nobody else sitting with me on these bleachers knows what I'm listening to. I am just a tremendously subversive and dangerous

and intimidatingly cool person. And that is obviously mega corny, but I do feel like this experiment. This environment gives me a new appreciation for this music, the simplicity, the intensity, the occasionally implicit, but more often quite explicit violence, the raucous exhilaration,

the mosh pit adjacency, and the palpable. unease too, the sort of wincing concerned of it all as I watch various 13-year-olds arbitrarily smash one another's heads into a rolled-out gym mat at center court of a middle school gymnasium

as their parents shout indecipherable instructions from the bleachers. My role here as a bewildered onlooker, as a clueless spectator, as a wallflower? I imagine that this would be my mentality and my role in the club as well had I ever set foot in the club.

But at least this wrestling match I'm watching right now qualifies as, you know, a wholesome extracurricular activity. Turns out my kids not even wrestling today, but I'll cheer for his whole team. Sure. Come on, Blake or Mason or Aden or whatever your name is. Put him in a headlock or whatever. I assume this sort of thing builds character, putting people in headlocks and getting put in headlocks yourself, an invaluable life experience.

This song is called Damn! Exclamation Point released in 2003 by Youngbloods, the Atlanta duo of Jay Bo and Sean Paul. The YB and concluding Z in Youngbloods are all capitalized. The monosyllabic synthesizer line, the electric fence jolt of bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, bo, there is a fine art and elegance, an exquisite sophistication to building a musical backdrop

this simple and repetitive that holds up for this loan that builds momentum and force as it goes. In addition to producing and co-writing this track, Lil John is also heavily featured on Dam. And I do think heavily featured is the proper way to describe Lil John's contribution to any track, even if his contribution consists of the word hey. Though, of course, in this case,

Will John also wraps slash chants, slash screams, slash grunts, slash bellows, many additional words. If I ever run for president, this will be my nine-word approach to foreign policy. Don't start no shit, it won't be no shit. I have to say I tremendously enjoyed this experience, my little crunk wrestling excursion. And I intend to watch all my son's wrestling matches like this going forward. So to all my fellow wrestling parents out there, if you see me perched on the bleachers,

shoveling Sour Patch Kids from the snack bar into my mouth and rocking vigorously from side to side, don't let any of your other kids snatch the AirPods out of my ears, lest they be scandalized by whatever uncouth jam I happen to be listening to at the time. I guess what I'm saying is

don't start no shit, it won't be no shit. That's the Ying Yang Twins again. That's Salt Shaker from 2003, featuring Lil Jon. on the East Side Boys. This initial monster run Lil John goes on in the early in mid-2000s.

As an artist, a songwriter, a producer, a taste maker, a one-man genre. It's really truly something. How this dude was suddenly permanently everywhere,

working with everyone on every song blowing up the radio. Let's not play favorites. But yeah, never mind. This one's still my favorite. Hey,

look, it's Lil John producing in co-writing for his old high school favorite, Too Short, the mayor of Oakland, the S in short is a dollar sign. Two Shorts campaign slogan is just one word, but I'd rather not tell you what that word is.

That's Blow the Whistle from 2006. I think this one's still my favorite because this song was described to me before I heard it. I was living in Oakland and my buddy Garrett was like, you hear this new two short song, blow the whistle, and I'm like, nah. And Garrett's like, yeah, man, it's awesome.

It goes, blow the whistle. do do blow the whistle and I'm like yeah that sounds pretty good and it does in an additional fascinating super impressive almost noble aspect

of the Liljohn Radio takeover is that whether he's the guy yelling or he's just the producer and songwriter this guy makes pop songs that don't compromise themselves trying to be pop

songs he does not compromise he does not overreach he does not water himself down his songs work as pop songs naturally, organically, because they are inevitably and somewhat paradoxically pleasing to the ear.

Four adverbs in one sentence. And the more absurd this paradox, this perfect pop song that doesn't behave like a pop song paradox, the more pleasing the song becomes. I had myself a delightful time recently driving to the post office while listening

to the 2002 Liljohn and the East Side Boys album Kings of Crunk. And I was like, is he yelling over the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack right now? I do believe that's Lil John shouting, throw it up, motherfucker, throw it up over a sample of the Cronos Quartet's version of Lux Eternah, which features prominently in the fucking super traumatizing 2000 film Requiem for a Dream, which I watched exactly once and do not wish to think about ever again.

But Lil John makes it bearable. Doesn't he? Driving to the post office is not an activity and environment similar to going to the club, but I had to pick up my mail. All this and we skipped Lil John's pre-history. His early and tremendously impactful pre-artist stint as just a background music industry player, as an A&R guy for Atlanta's SOSO Deaf recordings in the 90s. So-So-So-Def was started by the producer and mogul in Atlanta legend,

Jermaine Dupree. Will John's first project for the label just so happens to be a sneaky pick for best album of the 90s. The 1996 compilation, So So Death Bass All-Stars. Put this shit on at your next cookout, and somebody's going to get pregnant and or arrested. That's play a poncho in L.A. Snow with a song called What's Up?

But this was the one, right? This was the shock smash hit, the paradigm shift, the enduring favorite, the present-day viral sensation, the all-timer. yes, my boo, the one and only hit, the one and only song by Ghost Town DJs. My boo is the one.

My boo is eternal. The incredible, the life-changing harmony that hits on Be your Lady, Baby. This is a pop song that can make you levitate. And it is a pop song. It is an immaculate, all-time great pop song. It is an Atlanta bass song that became a pop song. But to Lil John's mind, it became a pop song so huge that it crushed Atlanta bass music. Back in March 2024, Liljohn did a lengthy, delightful, and grossing interview with a New York Times popcast deluxe.

And Will John said, quote, when we did my boo, it changed the dynamic of the music. Because then it was so freaking big that everyone now wanted to do a singing hook. So I think that was the death of bass music because everybody started. started to try to want to chase that. End quote. And this is crucial to the greatness and the thoughtfulness of Lil John, that he makes gigantic pop hits, but he is hyper-conscious of what a gigantic pop hit can do to a fragile regional ecosystem, the ruinous domino effect of feeble copycats a hit

can inspire, the precious originality that can bleed out of a vital subculture when one song dominates the landscape. He respects the culture. He's careful to preserve the culture. If you give a damn, he gives a fuck. And Lil John knows that sometimes a bonkers blockbuster pop

hit is more trouble than it's worth. But sometimes, the guy can't help himself. Peace up. A town, that.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, shit. I shun me. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 12th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, Cole in the 2000s. And this week we are discussing Usher's Yeah, also featuring Lil John and Ludacris. Yeah, of course, appears on Usher's bonkers blockbuster 2004 album Confessions. Yeah, of course, also served as the dramatic conclusion to Usher's 2024 Super Bowl halftime performance. That's yeah, exclamation point. And it's hard to think of a song more deserving of an exclamation point.

Try to think of one right now and we'll be right back. How you doing? I really have mastered the ad break. It's inspiring, really. Did you use that ad break productively? Did you think of a better or more deserving song with an exclamation point in the title? Man exclamation point. I feel like a woman exclamation point by Shania Twain.

That's a good one too. That's got two exclamation points. But that one ain't got Lil John. Okay, but so Usher, right? You familiar with Usher? We better get right into it. Usher Raymond 4th is born in Dallas, Texas on October 14th, 1978. He's a Libra. He grows up mostly in Chattanooga, Tennessee, raised primarily by his mother, Janetta. When Usher is 12 years old, Janetta also becomes Usher's manager, and she will remain her son's manager for the next 17 years. Usher grows up singing. in church, he grows up thinking maybe he'll become a preacher, but as a 10-year-old, he joins an

R&B quintet called New Beginning. And that doesn't amount to much, but by the time he hits his teens and his mother's move the family to Atlanta for career-type reasons, Usher gets to thinking that, yeah, maybe he'd rather be an R&B star. Usher signs with LaFace Records, the label co-founded by Big Shot Music Executive L.A. Reed and Big Shot R&B star Babyface. Usher auditions for L.A. Reed and Babyface by singing, What song do you think? This is easy somehow. You know what song. Instinctively, you know what song Usher auditioned with. Once you know that Usher got a record deal by singing End of the Road by Boys to Men,

there is no other possible song. Usher could have sung in that situation. I can't explain it, but you get it. It is entirely logical. Young Usher struggles somewhat with puberty. Usher later tells Rolling Stone, quote, "'Look like a damn machine gun hit my face. Then I got acne medicine that made me all light and shit.'" End quote. That's a 2004 Rolling Stone cover story.

Thank you very much, in which Usher also says, quote, I sold millions of albums in my time and never been on the cover of Rolling Stone before. Shoot, I thought they don't put black faces on those covers. End quote. That's good. I like this guy. Anyways, he's got hella pimples. His voice is changing. He punches a wall. The vibe is grim. And so LaFace Records sends young, flustered, acne-ridden Usher out to New York City, where he flourishes under the tutelage of, uh, shit, puff daddy.

Let's not get bogged down in the puff daddy of it all, shall we? Let's not and say we didn't. Usher's debut album called Simply Usher is released in August. 1994. He is 15 years old and sounds like it. And in fact, he sounds more 15, the more he tries to sound like he's not 15. Every time I look at you, there's so many things that I want to promise you that I've spent my life with you. This song is called Can You Get With It? The you there just being the letter you. An evoking prince, even typographically,

is awfully brazen at this stage. And I promise you when I'm ready that I'll spend my life with you is not the world's most reassuring promise, romantically speaking, but a song with a pre-chorus this heavenly can get away with a lot.

No? You might levitate just for a second when the harmonies hit. But I don't have much money. Okay, but so it's only a sexual thing. That's direct. That's honest. That's dissonant.

Is it dissonant? Maybe it's not dissonant at all. I used the term. I said the words sex jam like 400 times in one episode of bandsplain. Don't look it up. And I made a solemn vow to myself to never use that term again. But this song is a love song about how Usher is not nearly old enough to convincingly sing a love song yet. But he's got some ideas for how to pass the time.

in the meantime. Yeah, we got it. This song, Can You Get With It is written and produced by Devante Swing of R&B Giants Jodacy. But notably, Timbaland also gets a production credit, a very young pre-superstardom Timbaland, back in the unhappy for him era when he worked, when he toiled for Devante Swing as part of the ill-fated swing mob. This song is pure uncut 1994.

Yes, the slow jam, the little yo-yo flute-sounding hook. Bo do-do do do do do the heavy jodicy vibes. The heavy boys to men vibes. 1994, Mary J. Blige's My Life is huge. Brandy's first album is huge. R&B is huge. R&B is a force, a powerhouse, a self-sufficient entity. This debut Usher record is indeed,

executive produced by one Puff Daddy. And so there are blatant pop aspirations. There's blatant hip-hop swagger. There is intriguing crossover potential. But you get the sense that Usher very explicitly wants to be an R&B singer, an R&B star. Not a thrillback necessarily, but Usher sees himself as part of a lineage and he's casting back to what, to Stevie Wonder, to Marvin Gay, to Sam Cook, to Al Green, even when the music is aggressively pushing him forward. This song is called Think of You. That is Biz Marquis voice providing the yes, yes, y'all to the beat y'all there, sampled from the 1988 Big Daddy Kane song, just rhyming with biz. But going forward, the battle between hip-hop and R&B, the fate of R&B going forward, as hip-hop gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. This always struck me as a central conflict in Usher's music.

the present and the future of his music. It's a fight. It's a battle. It's a war. It's an existential clash between R&B and hip-hop, R&B and pop. Push far enough forward at 2010 or so and the fights between R&B and EDM. Usher is malleable. He is curious. He is adventurous. Musically, he goes where the action is, and he is often crucial in expanding our sense of where the action can be.

But no matter what noises you arrange around him, I will always partly hear Usher as a throwback as an old soul, as a guy who wants to dance like Michael Jackson and sing like Donnie Hathaway. This is a person who always sounds contemporary, but somehow, simultaneously, sometimes you put on an Usher song and you forget what year it is. This song is called I Will, and it is perhaps not the first song you think of

when you think of Usher's sophomore album. released in 1997 and called My Way. But it might be the first song I think of. Maybe it's just the pricing there that makes me forget what year it is. Those are 50s and 60s prices for thoughts and kisses. Those are Jackie Wilson prices. Usher also loves soul and R&B legend Jackie Wilson, aka Mr. Excitement.

Usher is praised for his, quote, surprisingly voracious music curiosity, end quote. in a 1998 vibe cover story in which Usher says, quote, I was always the kid that would just sit by the radio at sleepovers. They'd be like, come on, come play hide and go seek, but I'd want to stay up and hear the slow jams on the radio because they didn't play those songs during the day. End quote.

Usher appears on this cover of vibe posing shirtless and a large body of water next to the headline, Wet Dream. I just thought I'd mention that. the My Way album intends to bombard you as songs so ludicrously horny that they can only safely be played at night. Take you to a place nice and quiet. There ain't no one that's a interrupt ain't got a rush. I just want to take it nice and slow.

Take, for example, this ludicrously horny song called Nice and Slow, which coincidentally, It's not a coincidence. Coincidentally, this also happens to be Usher's first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Usher has huge hit songs now. The self-titled Usher album sold around half a million copies and was somewhat of a disappointment. My Way will eventually sell around 7 million copies and not be a disappointment. Usher is a pop star now. My Way is produced primarily by Babyface, Germain.

Dupre and Manuel Seal. Babyface and Jermaine Dupre are two giant hitmakers with quite different but splendidly complimentary vibes. Not to oversimplify, but babyface is the guy you get to write songs literally called slow jam and bedtime. Jermaine Dupree is the guy who helps you write about how you're dating three women at the same time. Oh boy. This is the first track. on my way. It is called you make me want to dot, dot, dot, dot. And according to the Usher Rolling Stone cover story from 2004, it's about the best relationship he ever had.

Which involved, he explains, quote, three women at one time. I knew it was wrong, but it worked for me. I was with one woman who was really supportive, like a backbone. Then there was a homie who knew about the other two and another where it was sex, sex, sex, all the

time. The song is about leaving the backbone for the sexy girl, which I did. It didn't work, though. You can't turn a hoe into a housewife, end quote. Well, that's too bad. I do think that you make me want to gracefully establishes a core element of the Usher experience. Ideally, in an Usher song, Usher is either describing a time when he's screwed up or he is screwing up right now. I do exactly what I feel inside.

I don't want to go, don't need to stay, but I really need to get it together. That last line, in fact, is how I would summarize the thesis of the best Usher songs. I really need to get it together. And as with all great pop music, soul music, the most exhilarating thrill of all

is that you're pretty sure that he ain't never going to get it together. Jump ahead four years, and Usher is rejecting a lady he likes, because she looks too much like another lady he likes. This is a stupid reason not to get with someone. It's called having a type.

You're lucky that flute riff is so rad or this song would be pretty exasperating. The video for this song is just Usher cavorting with Rizanda Thomas, aka Chili from TLC. And they're a fantastic IRL couple, but he's going to screw that up too. Sheesh, dude, you really need to get it together.

I don't believe, won't believe it, baby. I just can't get it. Boo. Boo. I don't know why I'm taking this song so personally all of a sudden. This song is called You Remind Me. That's you as in just the letter you. And the typographical Prince Echo is a little more justifiable now that he's a big star, isn't it?

plus we got Prince cohorts Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis producing you remind me that'll earn you a letter you this is the lead single off Usher's third album 8701 released on August 7th 2001 that's 8701 thus the title I never knew why Usher called this album 8701 and I had this instinct to not look it up but I did anyway and that's disappointing honestly that it's just the release date I wanted it to be the code name for his private jet or something that'll teach me to do research. You know the most important line in this song? It's right at the beginning.

It's where Usher tells the woman he's singing what to do while he's singing her the song. Kind of hard to explain, but girl, I'll try. You need to sit down. This may take a while. You need to sit down. This may take a while feels tremendously important to me.

Usher issuing a command, Usher doing some scene blocking, Usher posing his audience like he's playing with action figures. There's a striking physical dimension to Usher's songs, a sense that you are being directly addressed and manipulated within the song,

that you're in the front row at one of those R&B concerts where the singer pulls a fan on stage and sits them down in a chair and, you know, humps them. Usher songs feel three-dimensional to me. if only in the sense that a mattress is a three-dimensional object. Usher songs feel three-dimensional, even what all he does is remind you

that you're listening to a song he is singing to you. And I'm going to level with you. I am not even especially touched by the words in the song. song, which is called You Got It Bad, letter you again, because I am way too busy being enormously emotionally affected by just the tone of Usher's voice,

the wailing, the pleading, the raw emotion, the rich text of simply the way Usher moans various o's and knows as the song begins. I had never really focused on the wind there also, the quite

prominent wind. Do you think that's actual diagetic sampled wind? Or is that just a guy in the studio going into a microphone? It doesn't matter. I have vivid memories of driving around in 2001 and 2002, driving to the club, perhaps. Or no, obviously not.

Maybe the post office, though. And you got it bad, comes on the radio, and I am truly startled by the power of Usher's voice, the physical force of it. This melody is like two notes, right? And yet I am mesmerized, still mesmerized, still so mesmerized that the words have not yet fully registered for me. I'm sure these are splendid words.

I am absolutely positive that they don't matter. When you're feeling in your body, you've found somebody who makes you change your ways like hanging with your crew. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do you. You got it bad really works for me. It really works for me on either a pre-language or a post-language level. Despite the disappointing title origin story, 8701 establishes Usher here in 2001 as our best case scenario

for pushing R&B into the 21st century, for modernizing R&B without sacrificing the vital, classic, eternal core of R&B. He sounds like the future, and he sounds like the kid at the sleepover who just wants to hear some old slowjams on the radio. You don't have to call is the best song on this record. though, right? Capital

U again. The three big singles on this record are all addressed to capital you, you. That feels significant. Right? Or that feels significant until the hook of you don't have to call hits whereupon nothing else is remotely significant. The Neptunes,

ladies and gentlemen, producing this one. You don't have to call sounds like the sun is either rising or setting every time the chorus hits, whichever of those you prefer. All right. All right. Time for the big one. Time for the truly gargantuan album. Time for his first number one album. We're talking diamond sales, more than 10 million copies sold in America. We're talking an album so big Usher gets to play the Super Bowl 20 years later. We're talking thriller numbers adjusted for the Napster era. Close enough.

Usher's fourth album released in 2004 is called Confessions. Talking to Billboard magazine in 2014, songwriter and producer Jermaine Dupree says, quote, the topic of interest of people not being interested in Usher, the person, was the main subject matter at that point. The media wasn't completely sold on Usher

and Usher's interest inside and outside of the music. How do we make him interesting was the conversation. End quote. Talking to Complex about this same topic, Germain adds, my whole thing was to raise a ruckus. So, how do we raise a ruckus?

How do we make Usher interesting? We accentuate the many ways in which Usher still hasn't gotten it together. I got a chick on the side with a crib on a ride. I've been telling you so many lives ain't no good.

It's all bad. If you're Germain Dupree, anyway, you help usher write two songs called Confessions and Confessions Part 2. This is the first Confessions, the song they initially called All Bad. Everything that I've been doing is all bad is a fantastic way to convey the idea that you still ain't got it together. The goal here, somewhat bizarrely and very specifically, is to make the listener, make the media, make the general public think that Usher is singing explicitly about his recent high-profile breakup with Rosanda Thomas, aka Chili from TLC. I told you he was going to screw that up.

The goal is to turn the whole Confessions album into a tabloid sensation, not just a musical sensation. The goal is to take the word confessions literally, or at least convince everyone that Usher is taking it literally. And I was convinced anyway, which is why I'd be driving to the post office in 2004, 2005, and I'm listening to the radio, and I'm wincing, inwardly and outwardly for Usher, as Usher confesses, in lascivious detail that he really, really, really screwed it up this time. These are my confessions.

Just when I thought I said all I can say my chick on the side says she got one on the way. This is Confessions Part 2, and yeah, I totally bought this that Usher was speaking, was singing, was confessing autobiographically, which he was not. Germain Dupre talking to Vibe magazine in 2014 confessed, not for the first time, but actually this song was about him. The song was describing a situation in his screwed up personal life. This was Germain's confession, designed to sound and feel like Usher's. confession. Germain says, quote, we wanted the media to ask us questions. Nobody knows who the fuck Billy Jean is. We're still looking for her. End quote. And Usher's voice sells it. Yes, both the tone of his voice and the words themselves this time, contributing once again to the

sense of Usher and the woman he's confessing to existing in three-dimensional space, though probably they're not going to need a mattress this time. I really do struggle to think of any pop song I heard on the radio at any point in my life that made me feel worse for the person singing or made me feel more afraid for the personal well-being of the singer. And this impulse of mind to identify and sympathize with Usher in this situation, that's not great from a male toxicity standpoint, but like you've heard this guy sing in falsetto, right?

She opened up the door and didn't want to come near me. Please hear me. Pretty great falsetto, ain't it? So this confession's double shot is a narrative masterstroke, a PR masterstroke, in that the sympathetic slash gullible listener is now inclined to hear all the, other songs to hear this whole album through this prism of real life, super autobiographical pain

and regret. Usher is doing Usher type things at a higher level now, but more importantly, he's operating on a higher scale in terms of celebrity gossip. In the honestly unlikely events that you previously found Usher uninteresting, he has now unequivocally been made interesting. Four adverbs again. And so now perhaps you find yourself sitting by the the radio waiting for his slow jams to come on. Ladies, tell me, do you understand? Now all my fellas, do you feel my pain? Now all my fellas, do you feel my pain? And lots of us did and do. Or at least 10 million of us bought this record and spent some time thinking it over. This song is called Burn. In a previous Usher era, Burn would have a

legitimate shot at being the biggest, the best, the most impactful song on an Usher album. But this is not a previous era. Quick question for you. Are you familiar with this song Freakalique? Yeah, so this song's called Freakalik. That's Double E Freak-Freek hyphen capital A. hyphen double E leak, like the vegetable, Freakaleek. Released by Greenville, North Carolina rapper Pity Pablo in 2003. Can I actually play you the end of the first verse right before that chorus? This is one of the dirtiest and funniest ways to end a first verse that I've ever heard in my life. Earmuffs, kids.

Take away and try shit and they're scared up a big dick. You learn to get a pussy lick. Buy a nub bitch, because I ain't drunk enough to do that. Because I ain't drunk enough to do that, cracks me up. I'm sorry. That's uncouth. I am aware of how uncouth that is. These are P.D. Pablo's confessions.

Okay, so surprise. Lil John produced and co-wrote, Freakalique. And to give you some idea of how prolific and omnipresent Lil John was at this point, roundabouts 2003, Liljohn had worked up a bunch of potential beats for Mystical, the New Orleans rapper Mystical. And Mystical passed on most of those beats.

beats, including this one. And unbeknownst to Lil John, this beat fell into Pity Pablo's hands instead. But meanwhile, Will John had brought this beat to Usher, and they'd worked up a whole song around this beat. But once Lil John realized P.D. Pablo had already claimed this beat for Freakalik. Will John was forced to work up a whole new beat for this new Usher song. And so Lil John did, because Lil John is in possession of every virtue. And so Lil John and Usher came up with, yeah. Yeah, exclamation point. Yeah, 2.0, I suppose.

This was the backup plan, dude. Yeah, has seven credited writers, and Usher ain't even one of them. Will John Ludacris, Sean Garrett, Patrick Smith, aka JQ, Robert McDowell, James Phillips, aka El Rock, and Lamarcus Jefferson. And yet, yeah, is a deceptively simple musical composition. The riff, the blaring, libidinous peak Liljohn synthesizer riff is deceptively, almost offensively simple. Do do, do do do do.

But there is, not to repeat myself, but there is a fine art and elegance, an exquisite sophistication to building a musical backdrop. this simple and repetitive that holds up for this long, that builds momentum and force as it goes, but also the decaying slide whistle, yes, but also the bass, yes, the near absence of base, the subtle near absence of bass. I listen to when doves cry by Prince even now, right?

And the whole time it's playing, I'm thinking there's no base. There's no base. I can't believe there's no base. This is the wildest shit. Prince is the raddest dude to ever live. I've heard when doves cry a zillion times, and I'm

still shocked by it. But the base on yeah is ultra-minimal. It's basically just the base kick. Boom, booms. And then a one second every ten seconds. Hey, it sounds awesome when they do it. The little glass

tinkling, too. The sonic details here. The minimalism as maximalism. I fixate so much on this stuff on yeah, a song I have heard at least half a zillion times, that it is somehow never fully registered for me that Usher just sang the words, her and my girl used to be the best of homies. Yeah, is not R&B in the conventional sense. You will more often see this song described as crunken bee, which is laborious as genre names go, but it certainly fits. And it is

impressive genuinely that R&B survives this head-on collision with Crunk at all. Will John is, shall we say, a strong spice. Crunk as a musical genre, as a philosophy, tends to overwhelm anything and anybody exposed to it. That Lil John and Usher can coexist, can harmonize, is miraculous. Jermaine Dupree, talking to Complex in 2014, he admits that yeah scared him. because Crunk wasn't cool yet unless you were Liljohn. And Usher was not a guy who needed to chase trends.

Jermaine says, quote, I was 100% nervous as hell. It could have changed the whole scope because now people hear Usher make records. People have so much shit to say about it. Straight from the people who don't like it. They're like, yo, what the fuck is he doing? When is he going to start making R&B music again? I felt like this could have happened with, yeah. I felt like they could have been like,

what the fuck is wrong with y'all? End quote. Germain also says, quote, the song was incredible, but it didn't have anything to do with confessions, end quote. Musically, okay, no, but lyrically, even if it blew past me

for 20 years or so, her and my girl used to be the best of homies, sounds like Usher is about to do some shit he's going to have to apologize for later. Yes, this is an Usher is screwing up right now song. And this Confessions album doesn't work if there's nothing to confess.

Tonight's trip to the club is tomorrow's crushing source of regret. Or so I have read. Can I get your opinion on something? Does 300,000 ever bother you? Left the jag and I took the rolls. If they ain't cutting and I put them on foot patrol. How you like me now?

When my pinkies value over 300,000? Listen, I love it. love ludicrous. I am never unhappy to hear ludicrous. Yet another Atlanta legend. Yet another legendary Atlanta rapper with a remarkably long and magnificently varied career. Ludacris has been to space. But 300,000 bothers me. You don't need the zun. 300,000 works great.

Doesn't it? This bothers me. The thousand is an unpleasantly discordant moment on a song that is entirely composed of improbably pleasant discordance. I just can't complain about this and move on, though. That is disrespectful to Ludacris. You know what I love about Ludacris? His guest verses end well. They end fantastically. They are impeccably punctuated.

Ludacris never raps better than when he stops rapping. He escorts you back to a song's hook with unparalleled finessell. Let me show you what I mean. Let's drink you the one to please. Ludacriff's filled cups like double D. Me and Earth's what's more when we leave them dead? We want a lady in the street but a freak in a bed that say, That is a truly phenomenal pop song moment

when Luda's verse collides perfectly with yeah. The glorious dismount of but a freak in the bed that say, Yeah, that's split second when three pop stars align. And in Usher Liljohn and Ludacris, three pop stars who all, in their own individual, in imitable fashion, redefined what pop stardom could sound and maybe more importantly, act like. I have three more Usher songs to play you in like 60 seconds in which to play them. The goat song, the best song, and the other song called My Boo. Let's do it.

Put 60 seconds on the clock. Let's take them in reverse order. The special edition of Confessions also includes. Usher and Alicia Key is collaborating on the all-time second best song called My Boo. The Ghost Town DJ still have the best song called My Boo, but they didn't get to play it at the

Super Bowl. Now did they? Okay, next one. The single best song Usher has ever released is called Climax. Climax came out in 2012, and it's co-produced by Diplo of all people, and it's the best Usher song ever.

I'm sorry, but we don't have time to argue about this. I just played you like the ninth best part of this song. Climax also helpfully provides us with somewhat of a coda. Both Usher and Lil John get heavy into EDM, when EDM blows up pop-wise in the early 2010s. Will John, most notably for Turn Down for What, which he also got to perform at the Super Bowl. Climax is unbelievable, dude.

Best thing Usher ever did. Sorry, no time to discuss. Bring it home. Bring me the goat. This is a viral video of a very loud goat combined with the 2009 Usher song Papers. I meant goat song as in the animal, if that wasn't clear. I would be a more sophisticated and possibly a more tolerable person if this video were less funny to me. But as things stand, this video is incredibly funny to me.

Though this song, Papers was technically written and recorded prior to Usher's divorce, It was widely interpreted as a song about Usher's divorce. And likewise, I would feel worse about laughing at the goat in these circumstances if I were a better person. But let's call this a cautionary tale about how the internet responds if too many of your songs are cathartic super personal confessions. Maybe Usher over did it and got too interesting and raised too much of a ruckus. but isn't that what being in the club is all about? We are delighted to welcome back Clover Hope, critic and author of the book The Motherload,

100 plus women who made hip-hop. She's written for Pitchfork, Vibe, Vogue, The New York Times, and a billion other places. Clover, it's great to talk to you again. You too. I love the series. Love to be on here, so thank you. Oh, thank you so much. We love to have you. You wrote a Pitchfork Sunday review

of Usher's Confessions album, and you talked a lot about the media narrative that they sort of built behind the record, that way we were encouraged to think of this as Usher's like real life confessions when they obviously weren't. Like, is this album at its core somewhat of a PR stunt? Yeah, I mean, it was a marketing stunt, but I think it's a little more nuance than that. I like how Dermain Dupree described in interviews. He said the album was a way to basically make Usher into.

to people who didn't find him interesting at the time. So by that point, you know, I think everybody knew he was great at making hit songs. I think his previous album, 8701, is pretty underrated as kind of like a coming of age tale about a playboy. And then Confessions is that turning,

him turning the corner, basically, kind of struggling to settle into adulthood and just kind of what it means to be in a real relationship. So I think he clearly took advantage of the narrative, the Alley, you basically that Tremaine Dupree set up, you know, through his writing and production, through Dupree's writing

and production. You know, he produced those anchor songs by Confessions Part 2. And that song was based on Dupre's personal experience. Right. Usher said he didn't cheat or have a baby on the side. His ex-girlfriend

at the time, Chili said, you know, she confirmed that he didn't cheat, like this was like that wasn't the reason for the breakup. This was Usher, basically kind of just taking ownership of a certain narrative and throwing it out there, marketing it as, you know, just like his story. And it became a huge sensation. So, you know.

Do you agree with that idea that he wasn't interesting? Usher wasn't interesting prior to this? Like, he's on magazine covers. He's a huge star. Do you think he needed this kind of personal narrative to get to the level he got to with this record? Yeah. I think he needed it to evolve past just kind of being that R&B bad boy

kind of like he had this this certain image of you know he really started out young in his his scene as a teenager and you know a lot of R&B starts can kind of get pigeonholed into that you know

lane of they're just making songs they're just kind of making the songs for radio and not necessarily albums packages personas reinvention and he needed to kind of basically like kind of up the bar for himself if he wanted to really kind of be in the conversation of Michael Jackson or Marvin Gay. He couldn't just keep kind of making, you know, radio songs or, you know,

and they were smashes, but I mean, Confessions was a different level in terms of just storytelling. And yeah, I do think he, it's not that he wasn't interesting. He was, you know, in terms of the songs that he was making and like, collaborations, videos, visuals, putting Tyrese in the video. But I do think that, I mean, if you think about, well, what was his story back then? I don't think the average listener could be like, well, this is his story. Like, Usher is the, you know, in like a nutshell. Like, it wasn't easy to kind of sum him up, you know, in a way that maybe like Janet Jackson,

like she kind of immediately as a solo kind of pops are. came of like, I'm taking control of my narrative from my parents out of my brother's shadow. She had kind of an immediate narrative. And, like, he didn't, he didn't need to be, and, you know, like, just kind of, like, fluff it up a little bit, I guess. Sure. You connect the Confessions narrative to, like, what Drake does now or Taylor Swift. Like, Usher was obviously not the first pop star to construct, like, an album narrative at this level, like, turn his life into content or whatever. But is this album, his confessions underrated now?

You know, as part of the blueprint of how a pop star does this? I think it's underrated in the pop space. I don't, I do think, like, for a lot of R&B artists, confessions in the blueprint, obviously it was anything kind of new at the time. Like, you know, the pop world is kind of full of artists who are just pouring their hearts out, packaging their heartache, heartbreak, whatever, into an album. And like I said, Janet did that very well in terms of being a master of story. telling,

reinvention, every album, new look, new story, you know. But I do think that Asher kind of

did it for a different generation, and I also think he did it for, differently for male artists, male R&B artists, you know,

it's not, I don't think at the time, like, that generation was maybe used to an artist of his caliber,

just kind of allegedly being so truthful on a record, kind of being so, like, confessional, just, you know, or just kind of admitting, owning up to things, just being guilty, taking accountability for some things. So I think he kind of set a new type of blueprint, not the only one, but just kind of set up the next generation.

So the point that now we have artists who have been influenced by that album, artists of any gender, and, you know, kind of take strains of it. or just the idea of it even like just conceptually, you know, like they've kind of, I think of like a Jasmine Sullivan with whole tales. Yeah, right, right, yeah. After confessions, you mentioned,

you know, Usher made Here I Stand, which was about his marriage, and then he made Raymond versus Raymond, which is basically about his divorce, you know. Did Usher eventually overdo this, you know,

in making every new album some signpost in his private life? Like, did this get, did they get old after? a while this approach to album making. Yeah, I think, well, it's hard because, like, with R&B artists, especially, I know, because I was interviewing a lot of them at this, and it's, like, kind of mid-2000s space. And what kept happening was that after the first album, and it's not just, like, relegated to R&B, but after their first album, artists would have to kind of figure out

what story am I telling now, or, you know, they were always talking about growth. And it was like, but you just put an album out like two years ago. So you don't have to grow. How much have you grown in two years, realistically? Right. So, yeah, it's like manufactured growth in some way. And I think he kind of fell into that trap of, okay, this test, I have to have something new to say in terms of like evolution. Like, I have to be moving forward in some way.

And there are ways you can do that sonically. And I think he did it more narratively than sonically a lot of times. Like, you know, he experimented a little bit more maybe like later on with like looking for myself kind of getting into the dance edm. But I think the crafting became a little bit too much like salesmanship. And he leaned into the, you know, he's a showman and I think he kind of leaned into that. And we saw a little bit too much of the machine or like the gears of. Like, okay, you're trying to do something instead of just like, I'm just like singing and pouring my heart out, you know? So, like, you know, I think it's kind of confession kind of transcended in a way, transcended like the narrative, the machine.

And, you know, the albums afterwards just really couldn't match that. I mean, but that's not that unusual. I mean, it's just for an artist, like, you know, what topped thriller, you know? So it just was what it was. So I think the storytelling was there on Ayr-I-San, Raymond versus Raymond. The tension was there. But I think all the pieces have to align for those type of projects

to kind of keep working. And once you do it once, it's kind of, you know, the audience gets it. You can't really trick them like that. You write a lot about how Usher fits into the history of R&B. like what R&B meant in the early 2000s, like Justin Timberlake or something, versus R&B by the end of the decades,

like Drake is first blowing up. Like, do you see Usher as a classic R&B singer or a forward-looking, like, modern, like trying different stuff, R&B singer? Is he somehow, is he somehow both? Right. Classic R&B singer in the sense that, I mean, it really succeeds at merging classic sounds

or just the tradition of R&B with whatever is contemporary at that time. So you could turn the radio on in the 1960s, like Motown era, and his voice would have fit in back then, the 80s, 90s, 2000s now. So he's a traditional R&B singer. He really has kind of the tone, the sentimentality, the kind of,

just kind of that grit also that you can. can't really, you know, you can't really, like, you just have to have it. And, yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't, I don't know if I would describe him as forward thinking in the way of maybe like, like, TLC, you know, was with some, you know, maybe more so like the 3D, the fan mail album. But he was good at moving R&B forward, like taking it to the next destination, kind of keeping it alive. And I think his trademark was more so making R&B pop instead of like trying to make pop R&B, which, you know, like even with the, you know, the albums at post-confessions,

he's always made R&B. Like he's always had R&B as the kind of core of his music, even with OMG, all of that. You know, maybe in that way, yes, he's kind of, you know, forward-looking. but less like I guess I don't like not like future thinking but more so like just very

adeptic kind of blending or like making sure it's soul and everything right R&B plus is great no I totally like R&B plus a lot I mean thinking about the Confessions album like from what I've read like Usher loved burn the song Burn which is more of like a classic epic weeping R&B ballad

like you get the sense he loved Burn as a song more than he loved yeah, you know, even though yeah is the huge hit. Like, do you get the sense that Usher would be happy just being, you know, more of a pure straight ahead R&B singer? And like, he does, he mixes rap in or he mixes EDM in, like, just because that's what's popular now and that's what he has to do to an extent? Yeah, yeah. Um, I do, I mean, I think that, I mean, first of all, I always loved burn a little bit more than the out. So I might be also more on the So like usher kind of like side of things with that. But I think like his thing is

so I interviewed him like in I think it was 2007 around the time of OMG. And the thing he said was something about like I think I asked him like are you more pop than soul now? And he said yeah, he said something like he's all of that. He's like all of that and he tries his thing is really to put soul in everything.

And I tend to agree with that. So, you know, like, he's the weeping R&B. I think he always goes back to that because that's the core of, like, who he is. Is that kind of, you know, he could just go on stage and sing and he doesn't have to dance. He could just kind of sing and the vocals are on display and, like, that's his thing. but I do think that someone with his kind of level of swagger can't really be just pure R&B. Like he brings, he always has that kind of wild side or that edge, that kind of like rapper's kind of sensibility. Sure.

And Doug the actual like talk rap style that I do think he doesn't get credited as much for bringing that kind of double time flow into R&B. like, you know, it's kind of like the fast, kind of, um, fast singing, basically. Um, I think if you ask him, like, to sing a song on the spot is going to be like a burn or like, kind of not yeah. So, uh, but I think he's, I just don't,

I, I definitely see him as kind of like that person, that artist who helped R&B kind of turned this, um, Warner into, a little bit more into rap, rap, rap singing, where you get people like a Trace songs and Chris Brown, and they're able to do that hard indie sound that I think became, you know, like more popular. And I do think, like, confessions was a big, played a big role in that, like, he is the R&B playboy, you know, and that

I don't think, you know, and maybe, you know, that's the same could be said of, like, the Marvin Gay, like, he had that edge also. Um, but Marvin Gay wasn't rap. being like that. So, you know, it's, yeah, I think it's a little bit in the middle, basically, like, if I can be allowed to have that answer. Absolutely. As you say, I agree that, like, I sure doesn't need to dance. He doesn't need to move to perform. But I just watching up at the Super Bowl, like, roller skating, it's like, he's just, he moves so beautifully. He's such a fantastic dancer, you know, and it's like, he's in the mold. He's not better than, but he's in the mold of a Michael Jackson, like a classic entertainer. Does that make Usher more of a rarity now,

you know, that he's as good a dancer, you know, as good a performer as he is a pure singer. Yeah, I think we saw that with the Vegas show, and that's what came out. Like, he definitely seems like the last of his kind. I was able to, my first ever concert was Usher, 87. Oh, wow. Yeah. And Jersey. And I saw him at the recent bar. plays show. I've kind of interviewed him probably three or four times. So really been there for the

kind of evolution. And even in all those years, there aren't that many artists who are on that caliber or like even close to it. You have to have been dancing all of your life to be a great dancer. And you really need to

love to dance. So that is a rarity. And there's something that his Vegas show did to kind of preserve that in time or just, you know, end up the Super Bowl halftime show. In a way, I do think that it might become a little bit less of a rarity in the sense that artists now coming up will be influenced by this version of Usher. Like, let's say he hadn't done the Vegas show or he hadn't the Vegas residency and didn't have this sort of comeback. Like, I might have said something differently, but because we saw a, we saw a Vegas show. all this kind of like resurgence.

I feel like it's giving a newer generation a template that they might not have researched before or look back on. Now they can kind of see it live. So I think that is an interesting thing to look at in terms of, you know, I really thought that like singing, dancing,

just being a performer would be that it was kind of becoming extinct. You know, but we have Victoria Monet and she has all those elements. and I do things Yeah, at least from a production standpoint.

Yeah, yeah, no, but just her tour, you know, she really thought hard about. Yeah. Yeah, visual, like, performing as an R&B artist and not just kind of singing. So, you know, I do think like that, that's true, but the Vegas show basically was him telling another story to me, which was just, I am the greatest artist of my generation.

And that's, you know, And that is rare. Like, there's nobody, I think we can definitively say there's not another artist like Usher. People can try to argue. But I don't think, you know, I don't think that's, I don't think there's another artist who has made something like confessions. So just to wrap up. Okay, so you've interviewed him three or four times. You've interviewed so many people, huge stars.

Like, just what is he like as an interview? Is he more forthcoming, you know, in keeping with the confessions theme? like, what does he just like to be in a room with and to try and extract information from? He's very, this is where his kind of, you know, the media sensibility comes into play. He's very good at towing the line, I think. Sure. He'll give you a little, like, he'll give you enough that makes you feel like he's being forthcoming and just kind of is very ready to answer a question or just kind of, you can tell is coming from, you know, an honest place.

but I think he's so good with it and craft. He's just like crafty. He's a pro. Yeah, like it's the way that he says it will be like, okay, this is the best way to, this is the best way to present. I'm like to give that answer because he's just been trained to do that. But I do think there is like honesty in his approach. Like I didn't feel like he was lying to me in the interviews.

But I do think he's convenient. Like he's a. being in crew teller in a way. So, like, he will kind of give you just enough, basically. And I do think that's the mark of a really great artist is you always want a little bit more. Or, like, there is at least some mystery. And it's kind of like, are we getting the real usher? Well, we're getting some of him.

And maybe that's, like, that's kind of satisfying. And, you know, I think that's what confessions look also. Yeah, he's a performer in that sense, too. Yeah, yeah, exactly. but not too much. We don't know too much about Usher. We know plenty, but we don't know too much. Exactly.

It's so interesting. He is interesting. He is. There you go. They finally, they did it. They actually made him interesting. Clover, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for talking.

Thank you. Thanks very much to our guest this week, Clover Hope. Thanks to our producer filling in this week, Bobby Wagner. Thanks to our other producers, Justin Sales, and Jonathan Kerma. Thank you to Olivia Creary for additional production help. Thanks to Julianna Ress for fact-checking, and thank

you very much for listening. And now let's all go listen to Yeah, by Usher. We'll see you next week. That is a truly phenomenal pop song moment when Luda's verse collides perfectly with yeah, the glorious

dismount of But a freak in a bed that's a yeah, oh, God.