Usher might be using his Las Vegas and Paris residencies as practice for what he plans to bring to the 2024 Super Bowl Halftime show.
The Grammy award-winning singer is busy in Paris performing as part of his residency all while speaking with press since being announced as the headliner for next year’s Super Bowl halftime show. It was a “bucket list” gig that Usher couldn’t turn down.
“You want to win a Grammy, you would like to win an Oscar, you’d love to win a Brit Award. But not many get to play the Super Bowl,” he tells The Sun.
“Outside of the Olympics, it’s the most internationally watched show. So if there is an opportunity to speak to an entire world, that may or may not necessarily know about what I do as an entertainer, they get a snapshot.”
Just last week, Usher was announced as the headliner and it’s a moment the “Yeah” singer is still taking in ahead of all the hard work coming his way.
“I’m still savouring that call from (show curator) Jay-Z, who said, ‘You got the Super Bowl,’” Usher said. “I’m trying to savour it because everything else after that is about the work.”
As for what he has planned, Usher might be teasing parts of his halftime performance while performing his x-rated residency that includes rollerskaters and pole dancers of all shapes and sizes.
“Once I leave Paris I can really get into the choreography and the technical side of it, because it’s a huge space to play,” he shared. “The next step is to figure out what music, because it’s 13 minutes. I need to figure out what songs create an arc of a story, which is what this residency has been about trying to do too.”
For Usher, he has always admired the “athletic” ability of an exotic dancer and wants to introduce Atlanta’s signature strip club experience to the world in an artistic way.
“It’s all about our guilty pleasures. I want it to be intimate but on a big scale and to take people to places maybe they wouldn’t normally go to, both emotionally and physically,” he explained.
“So it’s like being taken to a strip club in Atlanta. We normally see Cirque Du Soleil and we celebrate it. But I’ve always looked at the culture of moving in that way, with a pole, artistically.”
“I’ve never looked at a pole dancer as ‘she’s just a pole dancer, she’s a stripper’. It’s athletic,” he continued. “And here’s what’s great about the show — all shapes and sizes and colors and creed is what makes it attractive.”
Super Bowl LVIII goes down on Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, where Usher will take the main stage for his first headlining set after performing alongside the Black Eyed Peas and Slash back in 2011.
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