e-mail this article

These Nuts

The sight of Usher Raymond dancing in his underwear is probably enough to get most fans watching the video for "U Don't Have to Call," third single off his album, 8701. It's a pleasant sight, even if, for those of us who've seen Usher in concert, it's not exactly news. Put it this way: the boy likes to take his clothes off and people like to see him do it.

In addition to showcasing his pretty white boxers, Usher's new video is also the latest installment in what might be called the "U" series -- following the Grammy-nominated "U Remind Me" and "U Got It Bad." These videos, much like the album they're designed to promote, trace the romantic travails of Usher's "character," a young man who has the swankest of clothes, jewelry, homes, electronic devices, and vehicles, but who somehow has missed out on his ideal girl, embodied in all three videos by Usher's off-screen girlfriend, Rozanda "Chilli" Thomas, of TLC.

Usher's previous albums -- the Puffy-produced Usher (released when he was only 16, in 1994), My Way (1997) (produced by Jermaine Dupri and yielding the number one singles, "You Make Me Wanna," "Nice & Slow," and "My Way"), and Usher: Live (2000) -- are progressively high-gloss r&b-pop, heavy on the melancholy rapture that characterizes falling in and out of teen-love. Poor Usher always has it bad in some way. And he gives himself over to pain and passion in very physical ways, drawing from Michael Jackson (with whom he danced on the much-maligned All-Star Tribute in September 2001) and Prince, his moves gloriously precise and emotive. Usher's performance -- even in his acting, as a guest star on Moesha and The Bold and the Beautiful (his mom's favorite soap), or as Tommy Hilfiger poster-boy during his couple of minutes in Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty -- is all about his body, at once lean and athletic, sinuous and resilient.

As a kid, Usher sang at the church where his mother, Jonetta Patton, was youth choir director. When he later went on the road, mom became his manager (dad left the family when Usher was born, and no one talks about or to him now). At 14, little Usher signed with LaFace, who spotted him as a repeat champion on Star Search, flew him to Atlanta for an audition, and then assigned Puffy (hot off solid work with Mary J. Blige and Jodeci) to produce the first record (and here's a scary thought: the two roomed together for several weeks, with Puffy playing "big brother").

Well received but no earth-shaker, the first record established the artist's smooth, if slightly high-pitched, melodic affect: girls swooned on cue. By the second album, his voice changed, along with his demeanor and body shape -- Usher discovered the gym and has obviously never let his membership lapse. Recall the June/July 1998 Vibe cover, with Usher posed as a "Wet Dream," all muscled torso and cascading water: very hunky, but never aggressive.

Long poised between childhood and adulthood, Usher invites you to sympathize with and lust after him at the same time. His is not a dangerous or forceful sexuality, but neither is it boy-bandy sweet. If his body is hard, his heart is aching. (And he loves dressing up that body: when he opened for Janet Jackson in 1998-99, during his fifteen minutes worth of set, he had almost as many costume changes as Miss Jackson for two hours.) This mix of conventional "feminine" and "masculine" characteristics allows Usher to appeal all over the place (gay, straight, what-have-you), and has sparked ongoing rumors about his sexual orientation (including sightings at gay clubs, etc.), or at least his open-mindedness, not always easy for a young black man to manage publicly. However you read his ever-yearning yet also quietly confident persona, Usher is able to work between the lines.

Perhaps the quintessential Usher moment comes in "You Make Me Wanna" (back in 1998), where he's trying to seduce his girlfriend's best friend, and while he's feeling really, really bad about it, he's also suggesting that it's the "you" who's responsible, because you are just so irresistible and beautiful and astonishing ("You make me wanna leave the one I'm with / Start a new relationship with you"). It's hard to be mad at him, even though a million other players have run this line before. He comes off as the victim of overwhelming emotions, succumbing to your charms ("When me and my girl was having problems / You used to say it would be okay / Suggest little nice things that I should do"). It didn't hurt that the video showed only multiple Ushers, leaving out a specific "you," leaving open that "you" might be, well, you, male or female.

Usher's new work is less ambiguous, in terms of both desire and object. So, while consumers will use him according to their own wants, however conditioned, resistant, or both, Usher's playing straight boy. He's given up the eccentric skully-and-goggles look for leather pants and short jackets, with metal studs, thanks very much. Live on 106th & Park on 11 February, he performed for girls who were near tears with excitement and longing. That's all right. He's still got the cat moves, still performs the handstands and backflips live (as he did on TRL a few months back), and still takes his clothes off, occasionally.

And yet, there is a change. Perhaps it's a function of "growing up," perhaps it's about keeping up. The "U" in the new videos refers most overtly (and repeatedly) to Chilli, which is fine, because "you" can still imagine what you want (and besides, he's still hanging with his back-up dancer boys). Moreover, the new songs and videos are still all about sex -- sort of chaste, earnestly yearning, pain-is-love kind of sex (per Ja Rule), the kind of sincerely performed sex that makes you pay attention to your own body. Unlike, say, Britney Spears or even Brandy, Usher's maturation isn't about amplifying the "edge" of his sexuality, but about refining and complicating the smoothness that always was. And unlike other boy acts, who tend to grow up in public by demonstrating their increasing range (across genres and audience appeals), exacerbated toughness, or even, at times, sense of responsibility, Usher is easing into adulthood by honing his emotionalism, in particular, his penchant for arrant vulnerability.

The first two videos in the current series show the Chattanooga, Tennessee native in the early stages of romantic breakup. "U Remind Me" locates him at a club, wearing his cell-phone earpiece and dancing up close with the girl who "reminds" him of the girl that he once knew, Chilli (this as foreplay for the moment when he exits the club to the rain-wet street, where he performs his patented handstand, which solicits nearly-delirious squeals of delight when he does it live); "U Got It Bad" has him remembering the good times, grieving over his loss and wondering how to recover.

"U Don't Have To Call" gets into that recovery, but again underlines his ingenuousness. It begins as he's sleeping in his fancy Hollywood bedroom (funny boy, on MTV's Making the Video, he confides that yes, he's naked under his sheets, that is, in those boxers). But he's restless and fretful -- Chilli appears for a second, as his dream partner, disappeared as he wakes. Regrets, he has a few -- "Situations will arise / In our lives / But U got to be smart about it / Celebrations with the guys" -- but he's ready to move on, maybe. All he needs is a little goading from pal P Diddy, who calls on the viddy-phone: "I been here before baby, shake it off!" (Again, on Making the Video, Usher has this to say about P: "Me and Puff still cool like this, after so many years. When other cats didn't really know what to do with me, he took the challenge." I don't think I even want to touch that.)

Encouraged by his boy, Usher rousts himself from bed to living room for a little early-Tom Cruise number, in white terry bathrobe and boxers, slipping and sliding, easing his mind the best way he knows, moving his fabulous body. Or, as he tells Making the Video<>, here he will "make "a complete ass of myself," in the little bit of choreography he calls "These Nuts."

For all his vulnerability, Usher decides that he's "Gonna boogie tonight / 'Cause I'm honestly too young of a guy / To stay home / Waitin' for love / I'm gonna do what a single man does / And that's party." So okay, let's get it started. First stop, closet, where Usher considers his many, many options: designer jeans and jackets, trays full of watches and necklaces, a splendid array of footwear. He's so careful about his selection, and looks so perfecto! when he makes it.

When he decides on the most amazing outfit (okayed by a female magazine cover model, who comes alive just long enough to give the nod: and frankly, if you ever see something like this before you head off to your party, you probably need to back off the party, just a little), he slides on down that banister and rolls. Still, just so you know he's still hurting, he passes a bus on the way to the club, a bus bearing the likeness of that dreaded ex, Chilli again, and ouch, he flinches just a smidge. But he'll be fine, you know, he's on his way to party. "U don't have to call / It's okay, girl / I'm gonna be alright tonight." Yeah sure, it's okay.

While the choreographed club scene passes as climax in this finally not-so-inventive video, really, what's most interesting is Usher's Prince-like brief and lively hookup with his boys in the parking garage at the Bonaventure Hotel: suddenly he's surrounded by a cadre of dancers, all agile and sinewy as he, though maybe not so cute (they're backup; it's in the contract). Inside, as Puffy sits off to the side, looking on like some kind of local Buddha, Usher pops his "surprise" move, riding down a red floor on his "heelies," those sneakers with built-in wheels. Then he's on the floor, engaged with his friends in a bit of choreographed flopping. Maybe it does look cool (or at least unusual) for a couple of seconds. But you might also wonder: this is the party he was so hyped to get to?