Kiss and tell

Deafening silence in a nightclub is an anomaly. But not so much as what 25-year-old Chattanooga native and longtime Atlanta resident Usher Raymond has achieved with the release of his fifth full-length, Confessions.

“Tonight, call me the million-dollar man,” says Usher, smiling as he grips the mic at his record release party held March 29 at Compound nightclub. The crowd is so strangely silent you can almost hear a million cash registers ringing faintly in the distance. Local artists including OutKast, Ludacris, India.Arie and now, Lil Jon, have made platinum records synonymous with Atlanta, so Usher’s news should be old hat. Still, Usher’s accomplishment is astonishing to many, as no R&B artist has ever sold a million records in one week.

As those blessed enough to travel in exclusive company shout into the mic more than once, Usher has made history with Confessions. Usher’s nearly 1.1 million sold is the second-highest debut for a male artist and the seventh-highest debut of the SoundScan era. What’s more telling about Usher’s accomplishment, however, is that the industry was caught completely off guard.

Some estimates had Usher selling 350,000 copies at best. One or two others predicted gold (500,000 units). But no one ventured toward the 1 million platinum mark, not even his own label of the minute, Arista Records, which literally had to ship more albums to stores. Yet Usher’s first single, “Yeah!,” produced by reigning king of crunk, Lil Jon, and featuring Bill O’Reilly target Ludacris, is a perfectly tailored hybrid of almost all Atlanta has become known for musically. It is the convergence of R&B/pop with hip-hop, mainstream and underground — each popular in their own right. It’s a shrewd maneuver, one of many in Usher’s career. At just 25, Usher may seem like an overnight sensation to some, but, like Ford, his career has been built to last.

“The success Usher is experiencing now is the manifestation of a well-planned and hard-fought strategy that he and Jonnetta [Patton, his mother and manager] have been working on from day one,” says former LaFace executive Sheri Huguely, who has witnessed Usher’s recording career from the beginning. “They have always known his talent and have worked hard to provide Usher the opportunities he needed to develop and grow as an artist.”

But one single doesn’t explain a million records sold in one week. And neither does public personal drama, America’s favorite ratings generator, though it certainly helps. By now, who doesn’t know that Usher cheated on Chilli, as in Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas of TLC? From the doctor’s office to sports radio, in the urban community (and the not-so-urban community, judging by items in the New York Post), Usher’s supposed love child was a hot topic prior to the March 23 release of Confessions.

“Real situations always have been a way that great R&B records have been created,” Usher told Hot 107.9’s Ryan Cameron the morning of March 29. “I pulled from my experiences, people around me ... and all that to create that thing.”

Those experiences include the drama of finding out that his “chick on the side” is pregnant with his child on the single “Confessions Pt. 2,” and that he has to break it to his main girl. It could be because things get so hot and heavy on “That’s What It’s Made For” that condoms are forgotten. “Burn,” the album’s second single, is reminiscent of “U Got It Bad” from 8701, Usher’s previous album, and is about the pain of accepting that a cherished relationship is over.

Controversy alone won’t sell a record. Ask Janet Jackson. Usher has avoided a cheap flash and flash in the pan, and has sold more than a million albums in one week because he has taken a lesson from the way artists like Control-era Jackson were developed: by gradually cultivating a fan base. In addition to his personal drama, appearances on MTV’s “TRL,” BET’s “106 and Park” and a hot lead single, Usher has hinted at his lasting power by evolving with his audience since he debuted in 1994 with Usher, which he recorded at age 14.

“Business-wise, Usher has gotten a lot more serious and understands that he has to bring different people in to take him where he really wants to be musically,” shares Confessions’ co-producer and Janet Jackson’s boyfriend Jermaine Dupri by e-mail. To that end, Usher has added former Sony Chairman Tommy Mottola to the manage- ment team still spearheaded by his mother.

What’s most interesting about Confessions is the tightrope that Usher walks. His sound is not too urban and not too pop. It is strong enough to satisfy both audiences. And, in all fairness, the pop audience is a lot hipper than it was 10 years ago when Usher was largely relegated to black audiences. Yet Usher takes the challenge of holding up R&B’s Olympic torch seriously. Although he is not afraid to collaborate or experiment, at the end of the day, he proudly proclaims that he is an R&B artist in the truest tradition.

“This is only one of the pieces of master art that I am going to put together in my career,” Usher said to Ryan Cameron. This particular piece of art happened before Antonio “L.A.” Reid, former LaFace head and an element of Usher’s success since the beginning, departed Arista, most of which is folded into Jive Records even as Confessions rides the charts. No one knows what the future may hold for Usher, or where it may take him. But, at this rate, the odds are that the only people silent about Usher will remain the crowds stunned by his success.

music@creativeloafing.com