Okay, so imagine this for a second. You are at
the absolute pinnacle of the music world you're
usher you basically define rmb for what two decades
you've got the grammys the diamond albums all
of it and everyone is just waiting for your next
big polished blockbuster album the next confessions
basically the magnum opus exactly but instead
of that you uh you go into a studio with the
absolute godfather of atlanta trap music you
knock out eight songs in what feels like a weekend
and then you just drop it with like 24 hours
notice, no big marketing plan, just boom, here
it is. It's the whole surprise drop thing. But,
you know, when a Beyonce or Drake does it, you
can feel the calculation behind it. This felt
different. This felt like an accident, like a
glitch. That's a really good way to put it. It
felt like a detour for sure. So today we're diving
deep into that very glitch. We're looking at
the 2018 collaborative album simply called A.
Usher and Zaytoven. Eight tracks of, well, brilliance,
confusion, and a whole lot of critical backlash.
And it's just a fascinating look at what happens
when a true legacy artist tries to run at the
same speed as the new generation. We've got the
backstory. We've got the... pretty skating reviews,
and we have the sales numbers, which, spoiler,
are genuinely shocking. Our mission today is
to figure out, was this a misunderstood moment
of pure spontaneity, or was it, as some critics
claimed, a desperate play to stay relevant? To
even start to answer that, we have to go back
to October 2018. All right, set the scene for
us. Okay, so it's October 11th, 2018. Trap music
is... Yeah. It's not just a genre. It's the dominant
sound of pop culture. You hear those hi -hats
everywhere. And then out of nowhere, Usher makes
an announcement. And when you say announcement,
you mean he just posts, hey, album tomorrow.
Literally. October 12th, it's out. That's such
a power move. It is, but what's so interesting
is the backstory of how it even came to be. Usher
told The Fader around that time that they weren't
even trying to make this album. Right, I saw
that. They were working on his, quote, future
album, the big one. Exactly, the real follow
-up to Hard To Love. But they're in the studio,
they make one track, it works, they make another.
And Usher said they just found a chemistry, a
rhythm, and they just kept going. You know, I
actually love that. It feels so... anti -industry.
Usually an artist at his level, everything is
approved by committee, by focus groups. This
just sounds like two guys vibing. It really does.
And it speaks to a chemistry they already had.
I mean, we should be clear, this wasn't the first
time they'd worked together. No, they had a history.
Yeah, you go back to 2010 on the Raymond v. Raymond
album, Zaytoven produced Papers. Which was a
huge song. Papers was everywhere, but Papers
still felt like an Usher song. It was smoother.
It was an R &B track with trap elements. Precisely.
Papers was Usher dipping a toe in Zaytoven's
world. A was Usher doing a cannonball into the
deep end. And the title A, I mean, it's obviously
for Atlanta. Yeah, it's a total homage to the
city. Which is what makes the recording location
kind of funny. Oh, yeah, I saw that. It was recorded
at Westlake in West Hollywood. So you have these
two Atlanta icons sitting in sunny California
making this album that's supposed to be a love
letter to their hometown. It's a little strange,
but I guess if you have Usher and Zaytoven in
a room, you know, Atlanta's in the room with
them. The spirit is there. For sure. And people
in the industry kind of knew something was up.
Mark Pitts from RCA had been posting photos on
Instagram of them in the studio for a few months.
But nobody knew it was going to be a full collaborative
album dropped overnight. And they definitely
didn't expect the whole aesthetic around it.
Oh, absolutely. This is where it goes from just
a mixtape to something more. The cover was designed
by Virgil Abloh. Which in 2018, that was the
ultimate co -sign. I mean, Virgil was Louis Vuitton.
He was off -white. He was the absolute center
of culture. Totally. And the cover has his signature
style all over it. The Helvetica font, the quotation
marks, that kind of industrial minimalist look.
It immediately framed the album as like a piece
of high art. It's a signal to the listener, right?
It says, this is cool. This is important. And
the trailer they released just doubled down on
that. It's just them driving around Atlanta,
going to Waffle House, skating rinks, really
grounding it in the city. It's like they were
stamping its passport even though they made it
in L .A. Exactly. So the packaging, the story,
it's all perfect. Yeah. But then you actually
have to press play. And that's where it gets
a little complicated. Yeah. Because you're taking
one of the greatest, smoothest vocalists of all
time and putting him on top of Zaytoven Beats.
And we should probably define that sound for
anyone who doesn't know. Beethoven's sound is
very distinct. It's not generic trap. It's got
those church organs, the flutes, and these really
frantic rolling hi -hats. It's busy. It's nervous
music. It's jittery. It feels like you just had
way too much coffee. Right. And that sound is
usually for rappers like Gucci Mane or Migos,
who have this very percussive, choppy flow that
kind of ride the chaos. Usher. Usher floats over
a track. He needs that space to do his runs.
So it's like asking a ballet dancer to perform
in a mosh pit. Or maybe it's a brilliant fusion.
But let's talk about the structure. It is short.
Very short. Eight songs, what, 27 minutes? 27
minutes and nine seconds. I mean, in an era where...
Artists are dropping these massive, bloated albums
to get streaming numbers. It's incredibly concise.
I appreciate that, actually. It feels more like
an EP. It respects your time. It does. And a
really key detail is that Zaytoven produced the
entire thing, every single track. That is so
rare for a major artist. It's a singular vision.
Just Zay. And to keep that Atlanta vibe going,
the guests are very, very specific. Yeah, the
list is short. You get Future on Stay at Home
and you get Gunna on Gift Shop. Future and Usher
on a crack together is just a wild idea. You
have the king of smooth romance and the king
of toxic, auto -tuned heartache. And that leads
into the content. Because what is Usher actually
singing about here? It's not the deep, dramatic
heartbreak of his classic stuff. No, looking
at the titles, peace sign, gift shop, birthday,
we're definitely in a different territory. We
are. And this was the first real problem for
a lot of people. Usher changed his songwriting
to fit the trap vibe. And lyrically, Trap is
often about, you know, the lifestyle, the club,
the money. Look at my watch. Look at my car.
Pretty much. And hearing Usher, a grown man,
a veteran, singing about these gift shop scenarios,
it just felt off to a lot of his fans. Like he
was wearing a costume. Exactly. And that brings
us to the reception. Because, oh boy, the reception
was something else. Something else is a very
diplomatic way of putting it. Huh. Well, let's
start with the numbers. The commercial performance.
It debuted at number 31 on the Billboard 200.
Number 31. For Usher. A guy who sold a million
copies of Confessions in one week. That's a disaster.
It's historically low for him. It sold 15 ,000
album equivalent units in the first week. 15
,000. That's all? And listen to this. Only 4
,000 of those were pure album sales. Actual people
buying the album. 4 ,000. I mean, I know streaming
changed everything, but that is a shockingly
low number for an artist of his stature. It showed
that his core audience, the people who buy Usher
albums, they just didn't show up for this one.
Okay, so the fans didn't buy it, but what about
the critics? Maybe it was a critical darling
that the public just didn't get. The critics
largely sided with the public. The consensus
was mixed to negative. to put it mildly. I'm
looking at some of these quotes. Rolling Stone
was brutal. Elias Light wrote on A, Usher moves
with the times and that's a bad thing. That's
a devastating line. It's basically saying that
his attempt to evolve was a mistake. It's the
whole uncle at the club argument. Like, just
be the cool uncle. Don't try to dress like the
kids. Exactly. And all music got into the specifics
of why it didn't work. They called it inspired
if mechanical. Mechanical. That's a rough word.
They said his superior vocal dexterity was almost
neutralized by overly familiar scenarios and
materialistic lyrical tropes. So basically, his
voice is a Ferrari engine, but he's stuck driving
it in a 20 mile per hour school zone. The trap
format limited what he could do vocally. That
was the argument. And it just kept coming. 34th
Street Magazine called it an uneven 27 minutes.
And Medium just wrote it off completely. The
less said about his AEP, the better. erase it
from memory. But was there anyone who liked it?
Because I do remember hearing Peace Sign and
thinking it was a solid track, it had a vibe.
There was a counterpoint, and it came from a
kind of surprising place, Pitchfork. Oh, interesting.
Pitchfork usually loves to take down a mainstream
artist trying something edgy. Their writer, Brianna
Younger, had a really nuanced take. She admitted
it was an awkward fit. She wrote that Zaytoven's
minimalist trap isn't always the ideal match
for Usher's traditional R &B. Okay, so she agrees
with the basic problem. She does. But then she
says, and this is the key part, when they push
both to their extreme, something magical happens.
Something magical. See, I think that's what a
lot of the critics missed. It's the friction.
The fact that it doesn't fit perfectly is what
makes it interesting. Exactly. If it were perfectly
smooth, it would just be a boring pop trap album.
But hearing his incredible voice fighting against
those chaotic beats, it creates a tension that's
really compelling. Maybe we shouldn't judge it
against confessions. Maybe we should just judge
it for what it is. A quick, fun, spontaneous
experiment. A snapshot of a moment in time. Yeah,
a snapshot from 2018. And if you look at his
whole career, this album sits in this strange
place between hard to love and his new album,
Coming Home. It's a bridge. But a bridge to where
he didn't really stick with this sound. No, but
it was a bridge that proved he was still engaged
with what was happening in music. Even if it
flocked. It showed he wasn't just sitting in
an ivory tower, ignoring the culture. He was
willing to get his hands dirty. That's a really
good point. In R &B and hip -hop, if you stop
engaging with what's new, you become an oldies
act overnight. And there's nothing wrong with
that. You can tour forever on your hits. But
it means you're not part of the current conversation
anymore. It was Usher saying, I'm still in the
conversation. Even if he's not the one driving
the car. Exactly. So looking back, you have an
album that was a commercial failure and a critical
punching bag. But it remains this weirdly important
artifact in his career. It kind of feels like
a what if. What if he had fully committed to
it? Or was this just something he had to get
out of the system before going back to being?
Well, uh, sure. I think it was a reminder that
even for the biggest stars in the world, not
everything has to be a perfectly planned five
-year project. Sometimes you can just make music
for the fun of it. And sometimes that fun only
lasts for 27 minutes. And that's okay. Which
really brings me to the final thought I want
to leave everyone with. The critics, like Rolling
Stone, they slammed him for moving with the times.
They wanted him to stay in his R &B lane. Right.
Wear the suit, sing the power ballads. Yeah.
But in an industry that moves so fast now, does
an artist like Usher actually need to experiment
like this just to stay alive? Is refusing to
evolve actually the riskier move? It's a catch
-22, isn't it? It is. We criticize them when
they change. We call it trying too hard. But
then we ignore them when they stay the same and
we call them dated. It feels like you can't win.
And with A, Usher chose to risk failure over
being predictable. He chose to try something
new, even if it didn't quite work. And maybe
an artist who's willing to fail in public is
ultimately more interesting than one who only
plays it safe. I think that's the real takeaway.
It might not be his best album, but it might
just be his bravest.