Usher’s “You Make Me Wanna” introduced his sophomore album My Way as the first single. His intense delivery and an arrangement led by an acoustic guitar was one of the classiest invitations to cheating in a relationship. The potential to break a heart was a risk listeners felt empathic towards because of Usher’s phenomenal performance. Jermaine Dupri co-wrote “You Make Me Wanna…” with Usher and Manuel Seal. He also produced the song with Seal and this time is the start of Dupri’s hit-making relationship with Usher. The Billie Woodruff-directed video captured Usher’s future icon status by cloning his image into five versions which sent the message that his artistry had the strength of more than one person. Usher achieved gold status with the single and it was an international Top Ten song. Billboard named him Pop Singer of the Year, he earned Best R&B/Soul Single, Male at the Soul Train Awards and a Grammy nomination for Best Male R&B Performance. “You Make Me Wanna…” was a landmark R&B song for 1997 that showed Usher’s growing importance to the genre and his status as the most relevant musical descendant of Michael Jackson.Â
Usher released his eighth studio album Hard II Love in 2016. In 2021, he started a residency at The Colosseum in Las Vegas that is one of the most talked-about, and attended musical events of the year with plans to continue in 2022.Â
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