Usher Talks Audible Original Debut ‘The Last Showman’: ‘I Put My Heart Into This’

“But who are you? That was the question I kept getting while talking to people around me about what was next. I hated that question, largely because I couldn’t grasp it. I’m like, the f–k you mean?” … The more I got that question, the more I realized I was a man trapped in my own public image, that transition from being a teenager to an adult.”

That frank excerpt about feeling boxed in is just one example of the many intriguing moments that can be heard on the latest Audible Original debuting today (Feb. 6): Usher’s Words + Music installment, The Last Showman. The project, written and produced by Usher and journalist/author Gerrick Kennedy, finds the eight-time Grammy winner in deep personal and professional introspection as he reflects on the past, present and future of his 30-year R&B/pop career.

Usher also delves further into detailing the process behind creating and writing one of his game-changing and record-breaking career hallmarks, 2004’s Confessions album. In addition, the Audible Original illuminates Usher’s reflections by featuring live excerpts of classic gems from his vast catalog, including “Burn”, “Confessions Pt. II”, “Can U Handle It?” and “Bad Girl.”

“Confessions, right? It started exactly like that, sitting around with my guys and confessing the things that we were going through,” recalls Usher in part during another revealing excerpt. “The studio was a safe place for us to just lay out, you know, the s–t that we were doing or going through or experiencing; no pretense, no judgment, just real talk. We didn’t go to the studio with our minds on creating a record that day. Nope. We spent two months working talking, chilling, no women, but just having real conversations about real life, just brutal honesty from a male’s perspective. And for that reason, I called the project real talk.”

With Audible Original’s The Last Showman, Usher adds his own volume to the popular Words + Music series, whose prior releases feature John Legend, Snoop Dogg, Sting, Smokey Robinson, Mariah Carey, Common and Sheryl Crow, among others. In fact, it was listening to Snoop Dogg’s installment and how listeners responded to it that convinced Usher to set his own project in motion.

That’s one of the insights Usher shared with Billboard during a recent Zoom interview ahead of today’s debut of the Audible Original, The Last Showman. Here are several soundbites from that chat with Usher, who begins the European leg of his Past Present Future tour with an eight-date sold-out run at London’s The O2 on March 29.

On writing and producing The Last Showman: Within the hectic schedule that I had, it was definitely a feat but one worthwhile. Audible gives you the perspective of being able to share nuances because it’s your voice. Writing a book be great; I’m going to do that in the future. But this is a step in the direction of beginning to talk about things that are personal to me. Creating a narrative or a voice in this space was part of the reason I did it. I’d heard about Snoop’s when he did it and how people responded to it.

And we’d been trying our hardest to find the best way to not necessarily reimagine but just give a different perspective of Confessions. What are other nuanced things you can offer that give people perspective? Like what did happen? Better yet, what didn’t happen? What didn’t happen was having a camera available; that wasn’t the culture of that time. Imagine if I’d had a camera set up, walking through all of the emotions and the nature of what we were talking about; where inspiration for the songs came from and even what goes into being a showman within that process of my life. I didn’t get a chance to do that.

So this gave me an opportunity to take myself and my fans back to where I was mentally and creatively [in my 20s] while making Confessions. It gives nuance to who I am, how I think and what makes me who I am as a showman.

How the Last Showman title originated: Gerrick and I worked primarily over last summer, creating the project through a series of conversations and interviews around certain things. Then we went through our notes and made certain they were in my voice and I recorded it. That gave me the freedom to really freelance and create nuances on top of what we wrote based on our initial interviews. And from that, we both landed on this as a title that’s necessary.

Artist development is slowly but surely becoming less of a priority. But when you hear this [project], it leads you to understand that if you want to be an artist like this artist, you’re going to have to do some work that’s different than what you normally would do with the intention of becoming a sustainable artist forever. I’m hoping that’s the inspiration that people take away from this. The title in itself is hopefully going to instigate the conversation of what it is to be a showman, and maybe even pose a question: Are you the last showman — and the last showman in comparison to what? So all of those things are kind of like the catch, the hook. You’ve got to have a hook that’s going to get people’s attention. But my intention is not just about that. It’s about making people understand the importance of artist development.

His own takeaway from the experience: I really put my heart into this opportunity. I think music at this point sells everything but itself. So this does help people have a perspective, a different viewpoint, about music and the creation of it. I want people to look at Audible in that way; I want other artists to understand the value of doing this. I’ve been very fortunate to have had a life and a whole host of experiences that have helped me be the artist I am. I’m just trying to offer that back to the people who care to listen.