“People wanna hear about the fun you have. That causes too much undue stress on other brothers,” Lewis explains. “When we were talking about the concepts of Confessions, I was like, man, nobody wants to hear you confess. Raymond, he felt like the project should have a fun element to it. Having known Usher for quite some time and forging a close friendship with Mr. Legendary producer Terry Lewis (of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis) had a different plan for the project. The album addresses that on a surface level, but it was more or less Usher’s means of also acknowledging his own wild ways and approaching that grown man status. It was later proved to be untrue (rumor has it those songs were about Jermaine Dupri’s life), but there’s a theme of cheating and how the cheating happened. While Usher denied his infidelity, it was assumed that he cheated on TLC’s Chilli throughout their two-year relationship. On his own terms.Ĭonfessions was appropriately named in that the album leaned on a notion of exactly that: confessing. At the same time, Usher was tinkering with a new style that would make his music more “Rap-friendly.” Sure his earliest days were spent with Diddy, and his right hand producer man was (and still is) Jermaine Dupri, but it wasn’t enough in the burgeoning Hip-Hop-Meets-Pop scene. In order to do that, he had to release some of his demons and replace them with sonic innovation that would not only soulfully bend genres in a way that had never effectively been done before, but reinvent the wheel for the male R&B artist.įrom top to bottom Confessions had a formula, which was to emote in a way that would still be punctuated with machismo, even at the most vulnerable moments. The lane was wide open for Usher Raymond IV to become what he always wanted to be: a chart-topping global sensation.

Kelly wouldn’t pair with Jay Z for a second time until close to Halloween. John Legend wouldn’t arrive until the end of the year, and R. It was a year for women to takeover, as acts like Destiny’s Child, Ciara, Ashanti, Janet Jackson and even Jill Scott were either delivering breakout projects or critically acclaimed masterpieces. R&B music in 2004 was approaching a crossroads. That was Usher’s angle taken with his fourth studio album, aptly titled Confessions. Instead, Eminem chooses to confess it all - from minutiae to major factoids -ultimately leaving his opponent Papa Doc with no fodder left to expose. There’s a scene in Eminem’s semi-biographical film 8 Mile, where he’s about to deliver his final battle rap, preparing for his opponent to air out all of his dirty laundry.

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