Usher is considering himself to be the “last showman” and he isn’t wrong. The innovative, charismatic, and self-proclaimed “defiant” triple threat details just how he earned such a title and reveals he began developing his onstage presence as early as age 12.
“I was a defiant artist, man. You know? My mother, she signed me up for talent shows around town and I would try my hardest to push the envelope every chance I got on stage,” the crooner noted in an exclusive preview of his Audible Words + Music episode, aptly titled “The Last Showman.”
He credited the likes of “James Brown, Michael Jackson, Elvis [Presley], Prince, Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly” for serving as his teachers and confessed that “creating memorable moments for the audience is what made [them] showmen.”
Ursher explained, “I took note of how they would use the stage to tell their story. I took that with me as a competitor everywhere I went.” He didn’t care about the size of the room or stage. The R&B legend was competitive regardless.
“It was my eye. I was always watching. It’s the thing that no one else on the stage did. I was attracted to that,” he noted. “If no one else had decided to go out into the audience and go close to people, that’s what I was doing. If someone was a great singer, but didn’t understand the power of stretching a song or singing acapella or the power of being able to go off the cuff? That was something I was doing—even at 12.”
Courtesy of Audible
At that tender age, he was serenading women twice his age and beyond. Usher proudly reflected how he’d go into the crowd and hold someone’s hand while also using each talent show as an opportunity to “sharpen my stage presence.”
Ush expressed, “I never wanted people to say, ‘Oh, he’s just a singer’ or ‘Oh, yeah he’s good, but he’s just a dancer.’ I wanted them to walk away saying, ‘Now, that? That’s entertainment and he’s a showman.’ So, I zeroed in on just that—being a showman from the beginning.”
With “The Last Showman,” the 8-time GRAMMY winner shares an introspective peek into his past, present, and future. The full episode is available for free on Audible.
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