Actors - Usher

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Usher Raymond IV (born October 14, 1978), known commonly as Usher, is an American singer, dancer, songwriter and actor. He has been a popular R&B performer since the mid-late 1990s. By the 2000s, Raymond was among the most popular performers in his genre and achieved significant sales and chart success from his albums and singles.

After a moderately noticed self-titled debut, Raymond stormed the charts with his enormously successful 1997 sophomore album, My Way, which featured the hit singles: "You Make Me Wanna", "Nice and Slow", and the title track. Its follow-up, 8701, included hits such as "U Remind Me", "U Got It Bad", and "U Don't Have to Call". Usher won a Grammy Award for "Best Male R&B Vocal" in the Grammy Awards of 2001 for "U Remind Me" off his 8701 album. His 2004 album Confessions sold 1.1 million copies in the United States in its first week of release, selling the greatest number of records in one week for any R&B artist, and has topped the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The first single from the album "Yeah!" featuring Ludacris and Lil Jon has topped the US Billboard Hot 100, European, Australian, World, US and World R&B charts, World Adult, Norwegian, Swiss, Dutch and the UK charts in 2004, it also reached number 2 in Canada and number 3 in Italy. Confessions shipped 9 million copies making it the best selling CD in the United States for the year 2004.

Professional music career

Usher Raymond IV was born in Dallas, Texas, to Usher Raymond III and Jonetta Patton, who is now his manager. As a single mother, Patton moved her family to Chattanooga, Tennessee, until 1992, when she moved with her two sons to Atlanta, Georgia. She raised her sons within the foundations of faith and family afforded by St. Elmo's Missionary Baptist Church, for which she served as choir director. Usher started singing in the church choir, and soon his singing talents became obvious. As early as junior high school, Usher began entering local talent shows. Six-months after moving to Atlanta, at age 13, Usher was performing at a Star Search audition when he was spotted by an A&R rep from LaFace who arranged an audition with L.A. Reid. A record contract soon followed. Usher explains: :I have been building my career since I was a little boy, because singing had always been what I wanted to do. At first I thought about playing football, then I wanted to play basketball, but in the end it was all about the music. It's my biggest passion and my biggest joy.

Usher was one month shy of his 15th birthday when his modest debut LaFace single made the R&B chart in late-1993, "Call Me a Mack," from the movie soundtrack of John Singleton's Poetic Justice.

Usher (1994-1996)

In August 1994, LaFace Records released Usher's self-titled debut album. Heavily involved in the project was Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, who produced several of the albums tracks and co-executive produced the album. Usher peaked at #25 on the R&B Albums chart — spinning off three singles: "Can U Get Wit It," "Think Of You," and "The Many Ways." Though the album was moderately successful and garnered Usher attention with urban listeners, it wasn't a runaway hit and went virtually unnoticed by more commercial audiences. Some critics, meanwhile, criticized Usher for its quasi-adult theme coming from a then sixteen year old singer. Usher, himself, later admitted that he wasn't fully comfortable with the direction of the album.

Over the next three years, Usher honed his skills as a stage performer, concentrated on graduating from high school, and laid the groundwork for his second album. Meanwhile, he was heard on "Let's Straighten It Out," a 1995 duet with fellow Atlanta teen and Rowdy/Arista artist Monica; and 1996's "Dreamin'," the first single from Rhythm of the Games, LaFace's Olympics benefit album.

My Way (1997–1998)

At the same time, Usher was developing a working relationship with Jermaine Dupri, "so he got to see my life," Usher said. "What we ended up writing and recording was about my life—about what I dealt with being a teenager going into manhood." The advance single, "You Make Me Wanna" exploded at radio in late-summer 1997 and hit #1 R&B in its second week out—the same week that My Way was released in September.

My Way, co-executive produced by L.A. Reid, Babyface and Dupri, marked the real genesis of Usher's career as a star. "You Make Me Wanna" stayed at #1 R&B for 11 weeks (the longest-charting R&B hit in more than 3 years) and at #2 pop for 7 weeks (second only to Elton John's "Candle In the Wind" tribute to Princess Diana). "You Make Me Wanna" remained on the R&B chart for an unprecedented 71 weeks as Usher's first platinum single. Into 1998, it segued into another massive platinum hit, "Nice & Slow" (a sensual ballad featuring Jagged Edge, with a video shot on location in Paris), the first of many Usher singles that would simultaneously reach #1 R&B (for 8 weeks) and #1 pop (for 2 weeks). My Way, whose title tune single extended into the summer 1998 (#2 pop/#4 R&B, also platinum), has gone on to earn six-times platinum album sales in the U.S. alone. Usher received his first Grammy Award nomination as Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "You Make Me Wanna," which was also nominated for a Soul Train Music Award as Best Male R&B/Soul Single.

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Actors - Usher

Professional music career

Usher (1994-1996)

My Way (1997–1998)

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