Usher sat down for an interview with Jive Magazine for their July issue. He talked about dissolving his working relationship with his mother who used to be his manager:
“I love my mother — she’s the only one I have,” he said, pausing for a moment before continuing. “I decided to not fire, not get rid of, but to give [my mother] the ultimate compliment — to retire her to be a full-time grandmother. My mother and I decided to change her situation, together. There was a conversation. I didn’t write her a letter or pink-slip her.”
He also talked about the difficult time he went through with his mom regarding his relationship with Tameka leading up to their off then on again wedding:
“I hurt more than anything over these last two years when I felt my mother didn’t really embrace my situation,” he told Vibe. “That really hurt me.”
“My mother is an aggressive person,” he said. “She makes hard decisions, and she caused me to make a hard decision as well.”
“Am I so much of a bad guy because I decided to get married? Am I so much of a bad guy [because once I got in the situation], I decided to stand for something, build a foundation, and think about my future?” he asked. “As a man, you would respect me for not turning my back on it. … It can never be bad to have a foundation as a man — a black man — in a time when women are dying for men. Women have started to become lovers of each other as a result of not having enough men. Are you not studying the stories? Wake up! Black love is a good thing.”
He also said he appreciates his wife and the values she brings to his life. “[Tameka] will tell me. If something doesn’t look right or she feels like it could look better, she’ll say something.
“The swagger I possess now definitely comes from my wife,” he said. “And my son completes me. He changes my perspective on what life is, and what matters.”
Usher also talked about married life in “Best Thing,” a song he duoed with Jay-Z also a newlywed on his new album, Here I Stand, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard albums chart earlier this month.