The night before his concert at Mall of Asia, R&B singer-songwriter Usher utters something that cracks up the media gathered at his press con in Edsa Shangri-La Hotel.
?I just got laid,? he says. ?I mean, this,? he adds hastily, pointing to the lei of flowers that a hotel staff welcomed him with.
For the next 15 minutes, Usher responds politely to questions he?s probably heard hundreds of times. It?s a huge compliment to be compared to Michael Jackson, he says, stretched out on a couch.
A female TV reporter tries to get him to sing a few notes of his early hit, ?Nice & Slow.? He merely flirts back: ?I would love to sing to you personally ... ?
That?s classic Usher, lover man perpetually absorbed in romantic pursuits, which pretty much sums up the persona in many of his songs that have highlighted a megabucks career.
Before the press con ends, sources with direct access to the promoters gladly relay the news that ticket sales have picked up, thanks partly to a price-slash scheme, plus the excitement caused by prime-time TV coverage of Usher?s arrival.
High anxiety
Outside the fenced area of the MOA open grounds on Friday, the sound of Usher?s persuasive vocals in ?You Remind Me? causes human and vehicular traffic to move at anxious levels.
His all-white outfit drenched in sweat, Usher cuts a dashing figure as he moves in restrained but arresting dance steps calculated to thrill diehard fans.
Occasionally, he reminds us of Marvin Gaye in the latter?s ?Sexual Healing? days. And of Michael Jackson. But Usher is more raunchy. When he sings the seduction number, ?Nice & Slow,? he doesn?t just cup his crotch, his hand crawls deep inside his pants. Then he goes down on all fours and simulates the sex act.
?Pang-adults ito,? a Sony Music boss whispers nervously. ?Well, this is what the fans pay for, right??
Gladly, we note that Usher has a lean and mean backup band, whose guitarist animates ?U Got It Bad? with some fine funk and spices up ?Nice & Slow? with a dash of Prince?s Hendrixian lines.
Two numbers from the best-selling album ?Confessions? get the crowd cheering. ?Burn? erupts into a sing-along. ?Confessions Part 2,? which contains references to unwanted pregnancy in an illicit affair, piques the imagination. Is the story for real?
Yes, it?s from real life?not his though, but his record producer?s, which says a lot about Usher?s writing craft: It sounds really close to home.
When ?Love in This Club? comes on, he engages a female dancer with some hot pumping motions. That?s when we realize this is what the new school of R&B stars have been flaunting onstage and in music videos?a catharsis of sexual freedom and racial pride among Afro-Americans.
Usher comes from a long line of black entertainers who have used sexuality as jump-off point in their music. Perhaps it goes back all the way to James Brown, except that the Godfather of Soul took great pains to excel in the songs? technical aspects, even as he blabbered, ?I?m like a sex machine ...?
Is he king?
Then again, the history of contemporary music itself began with images of what Usher has been projecting. Remember Elvis Presley?s swiveling hips?
When Usher says, ?I don?t want to be arrested here for exposing myself,? he?s calling to mind what actually happened to another sexually charged performer, Jim Morrison of The Doors.
So when Usher sings/raps the wild party scenario in the musically engaging ?Yeah!,? he?s simply asking the audience to loosen up.
Is he truly the king of R&B, as Channel V head JM Rodriguez introduced him the night before? Arguably, there are others who also deserve that title: R. Kelly, John Legend, the list goes on.
But on Friday night, many ladies in the crowd of about 40,000 may have been persuaded that Usher is the man who could make them scream.
