Usher is getting candid about his historic career, entering a new era and his upcoming tour. An icon and a trailblazer, the entertainer has been breaking records for over 3 decades with hit after hit, topping the billboard charts, a historic Vegas residency and performing the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Now he's entering a new venture, his first concert film 'Rendezvous in Paris' described as the essence of your Vegas residency but with a French touch.
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00:00What happens in the rooms when I perform is a lecture."
00:04Usher is getting candid and personal about his historic career,
00:08entering a new era and his upcoming tour.
00:11An icon and a trailblazer, the entertainer has been breaking records for over three decades
00:16with hit after hit, topping the Billboard charts, a historic Vegas residency,
00:21and just a casual performance called the Super Bowl halftime show.
00:25Now he's entering a new venture, his first concert film,
00:28Rendezvous in Paris, described as the essence of his Vegas residency, but with a French touch.
00:34So I wanted to ask why Paris?
00:36City of love, city of sin, city of lights, whatever you want to call it.
00:40Came many a times, but I'd never seen anybody do a show during Fashion Week.
00:45So that was the first step. The next was to film it.
00:49Um, after having the success that I did in Las Vegas, I wanted people to see it,
00:54but I wanted to go to a place that I felt like would speak to my entire international audience.
01:01What happens in the rooms when I perform is a lecture, is electrifying.
01:07I would only hope that it would leave them anticipating
01:10the next time that we can come together.
01:12And the next time is now. In the midst of promoting one concert,
01:15the performer is currently on another, his past, present, future world tour.
01:20I'm going next week, so I'm very excited.
01:22So I want to know for other fans, what can they expect once the lights come up?
01:26A little bit of my past, a lot of my present, and some of my future.
01:33No, what you can expect is a one-of-one performance. There's no two shows alike.
01:39There's a little bit of the technical side. I've chosen to allow technology to allow me
01:43to play with history, both in the past and the future.
01:46And this is the idea of technology and how AI kind of works.
01:50His past, present, future tour has also made the artist reflective on his career as a whole.
01:55What would you say to a teenage Usher
01:58about the journey that he's about to embark on? What's one thing you would say?
02:02I would tell myself that, you know, you have focus because I think I did.
02:06I really was trying my hardest to create something that was based on passion.
02:11Stay passionate and stay committed.
02:14The singer also reflected on how he's grown both musically
02:17and personally as an artist since those early years.
02:20The most important thing that I could have ever done is establish a passion.
02:24You know, I tried a lot, tried baseball, basketball, football, but music was the
02:31thing that would give me the opportunity to do things that I never thought I would have
02:35and go places and have experiences and attempt to be creative.
02:40And then be successful.
02:42Getting personal is also something that the singer shares in his new film as well.
02:47You saying that you are talking about life beyond the stage as well.
02:51There are a lot of written moments that were more cinematic
02:56visually, but with voiceovers that really conveyed some of the deeper things that
03:04have gone into the creation of the songs that I've created to add a narrative that could
03:10allow you to know more about me.
03:12Is there a song throughout your career that you were maybe surprised of the impact?
03:18I'm going to go back to the beginning.
03:21You know, songs like Think of Me.
03:25Because I didn't necessarily understand hip hop in the way that I was kind of being ushered in.
03:32Climax, the fact that so many people connected to this song
03:36was a very vulnerable moment in my life.
03:38Now we know his past, we're seeing his present.
03:42What would you say is the future for Usher?
03:45We hope to write something that lasts forever.
03:47So rather people are being introduced to my songs for the first time
03:52because they didn't know those early records from Usher or My Way or 8701.
03:57That is my idea of future.
04:00That people will be able to be introduced maybe to a song that,
04:06you know, allows them to feel something, to celebrate.
04:10Who knows, maybe to say, wait a minute, I'm not the only person that's going through this.
04:16The North American leg of Past, Present, Future is set to run through November 30
04:20before the tour resumes in the UK and Europe at the end of March.
04:24Meanwhile, Rendezvous in Paris is currently playing in theaters worldwide
04:27with a limited run from September 12th through September 15th.
04:31For more on this interview, head to THR.com.
04:34And for the latest entertainment news and updates, keep watching The Hollywood Reporter News.