Usher โDonโt leave your girl around meโ Raymond is the only artist worthy of wearing the crown left by the late Michael Jackson. There, itโs said!! Sure, itโs okay to get upset because manyโlike youโhave snarled at any comparison to the greatness of Moonwalk Mike.
Michael Jackson was so great he transformed into a glow-eyed werewolf and a Soul Train zombie in one video. He traveled back in time to flirt with an African Queen in FRONT of the King! Michael had a sea of people in arena stadiums passing out BEFORE singing a note. At his prime, Michael Jacksonโs reign is undisputed, but the King is dead, so long live the Kingโand may his name be Usher, baby.
SIDENOTE: For those who feel Chris Brown is a contender, to see why thatโs a half-baked argument, please check out my article, โChris Brown VS Usher: A Battle of Greats.โ
Looking 4 Myself
To understand why Usher is next-up to Michael Jackson is to understand the parallels to their musical origin stories. After discovering his talent at age nine, Usherโs mom put him in the church youth choir and a young R&B group competing in multiple talent shows in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Later, seeking more opportunities for his talent, Usherโs family moved to the Motown of the Southโaka Atlanta, Georgiaโwhere Usher met his Barry Gordy, aka LA Reid, co-founder of LaFace Records.
After performing for musical legend LA Reid, a then fourteen-year-old Usher signed his first major record deal and later dropped a self-titled debut album. With songs like โCan U Get Wit Itโ, โThink of Youโ, and โThe Many Ways,โ Usher came off as a Bobby Brown mini-me. The album had a below-average impact. If he was going to get anywhere near greatness, then Usher, like Michael, would have to recruit a new-millennium, Southern version of Quincy Jones.
Take Your Hand
By age eighteen, Jermaine โJDโ Dupri was already a successful producer and songwriter with his discovery of the teen sensation, Hip Hop duo Kriss Kross. He later started So So Def Records, where he pioneered the careers of Xscape, Da Brat, and more. Dupri instantly realized the challenge of working with Usher at their first meeting. โHe had acne, he had no muscles, voice was changing,โ he told the Steve Harvey Show. โWe worked on basically all that to get right.โThe right was Usherโs sophomore release album โMy Way.โ
The lead single from Usherโs โMy Wayโ was the guitar-led, up-tempo โYou Make Me Wanna,โ where he side-moonwalked, danced with a chair, and sang about a crush on another girl while having a girlfriend. Unlike its predecessor, which contained adult, sexual song vocals from a middle-schooler, the themes in โMay Wayโ had a mature sound that fit perfectly for the nineteen-year-old Usher. When mentioning the classic record โNice & Slow,โ Jermaine Dupri considers the ballad a game-changer when speaking to the Recording Academy, calling it โThe beginning of a different sound of R&B.โ
Donโt Waste My Time
The rebirth of Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, who now lived as Usher and Jermaine Dupri, would continue to blossom on the follow-up to โMy Wayโ, the third album titled โ8701.โ As a full adult, Usher created a break-up musical trilogy with โU Remind Meโ, โU Got It Badโ, and โU Donโt Have to Call.โ His fans, who had also grown into adulthood, watched each cinematic music video play out as art imitated life with Usherโs then girlfriend, Chilli of TLC.
OMG
With three albums in his arsenal, Usher was a solidified R&B star. What came next was that one masterpiece which can elevate a musical artist to legendary statusโthe one Thrillerโish album that would separate Usher from his contemporaries, putting him miles apart and placing him on a path toward Michael Jacksonโs crown.
Usherโs โConfessionsโ album is not on the same level as Michael Jacksonโs โThrillerโโbut it is its offspring. An album like โConfessionsโ is a true artistโs signature work. The album made Usher a global icon who existed everywhere in real-time. โYeahโ featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris conquered the clubs, โConfessions pt. 2โ played like a soap opera cliffhanger, and โBurnโ was rooted with enough emotion to create thug tears.
Hard II Love
Unfortunately, the magnitude of Usherโs โConfessionsโ placed him in the same lane as โThrillerโ did Michael Jackson, where no follow-up album could measure up. Despite this, Usherโs career continued successfully throughout the years with hit records such as โOMGโ, โThere Goes My Babyโ, โLove in This Clubโ, โClimaxโ, โLovers & Friendsโ, and more. Plus, Usher sharing the stage in a semi-dance battle with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, was epic.
Moving Mountains
Usherโs existence was always relevant but only sometimes appreciated. โIโm a little disappointed at how the public handles him (Usher) because heโs special,โ says producer/songwriter Bryan-Michael Cox on the Premium Pete Show podcast. โHe sold five million โMy Wayโ records. He sold seven million โ8701โ records. He sold ten million โConfessionsโ records. Heโs the only artist, the last artist, BLACK artist to go diamond in the past twenty years.โ For a brief consideration, Coxโs statement represented the possibility that Michael Jacksonโs crown was unattainable and that Usherโs legacy could die slowly. This statement mightโve become trueโฆuntil Tiny Desk.
NPR Musicโs Tiny Desk is a video music series where artists such as Anderson Paak., Charlie Wilson, Megan THEE Stallion, the late Mac Miller, Scarface, and others perform in an MTV Unplugged band style in front of a small audience. The showโs popularity has spread with its snippets on social media platforms, bringing together large-scale fans from all over digital space.
Here I Stand
Usherโs performance on Tiny Desk was a masterclass in legend. The high vocal note at the beginning of Superstar, the viral moment of โWatch This,โ and the women screaming in reaction to his singing the โOne Second Baby,โ line from โConfessions,โ became a euphoric moment of nostalgia. The surge from Tiny Desk elevated a desire for more fans to see his performance residency in Las Vegas, which went on to create its own internet moments.
The greatness of Michael Jackson is a height that no living artistโhuman or alienโcould surpass in this lifetime. The spiritual ceiling is too high, and the goalpost moves at lightning speed. Yet, a crown is not for a rulerโs past but his present, and Usher is an artist whose legacy makes him throne-worthy. His dance moves are not as innovative as Jacksonโs, but Usher does have a signature. Usher doesnโt have an album that has commercially performed like โThriller,โ but his music has connected culturally. Like Michael, Usherโs core audience grew up with him, creating a marriage between artist and fan. Usher is the heir to Michaelโnot as the same King, but the next one.
