My journey began in 1987, when I moved with My family from a quiet neighborhood in Chattanooga, Tenn., to Atlanta to pursue a career in music. Soon after My arrival, I began participating in various local talent shows. In 1992, I would turn an impromptu audition for a thoroughly impressed LaFace Records honcho Antonio "L.A." Reid into a bona fide contract. In 1994, at the age of 14, I recorded and released My self-titled debut album, which was produced by emerging hip-hop impresario Sean "Puffy" Combs. Despite the disc's first single, "Think of You," becoming a marginal hit, the CD was a big flop. On top of that, my voice began to change due to puberty, and Puff Daddy could no longer fit me into his busy schedule. "A lot of the lessons you learn later on in life, I learned at an early age," I say of the abandonment. "At one point in time, I felt like didn't nobody care about me. I had lost my voice, and was at my lowest point." Afterward, I took a long sabbatical, during which I made a conscious decision to take greater creative control of My music. In 1997, I connected with Atlanta's hottest hitmaker, Jermaine Dupri, and released my comeback CD, My Way. "What we ended up writing and recording about is my life –- about what I've dealt with, being a teenager who's going into manhood," he says about the project. The album spawned Top 10 hits like "Nice & Slow," "My Way" and "You Make Me Wanna," which topped Billboard's R&B singles chart for 11 straight weeks. My unstoppable energy brought Me back into the recording studio for my fourth album, 8701 (released August 7, 2001 – get it?). "I really analyzed myself as an artist and I'm really like a rapper who sings," I said at the time. "I like to tell stories in my songs… I did a lot of writing this time. It was like an evolution and I was involved conceptually this time with every tune." Confessions was released just as "Yeah!" was in its 6th week at ..1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 5th week at ..1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart. The album's 1.1 million unit first week was not only the highest first week numbers ever scanned by a male R&B artist in Soundscan's 13-year history (breaking R. Kelly's record of 540k for TP-2.com back in 2000) – but also the highest first week scans by any male artist since Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP (also in 2000, with 1.7 million units). As icing on the cake, Usher's success marked the biggest debut week in the 30 years of Arista's existence, breaking the 689k record held since 1997 by Notorious B.I.G.'s posthumous "Life After Death." Join The Official Usher Fan Club! guys layout @ HOT FreeLayouts.com
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