Usher Raymond IV, better known simply as Usher, is an African-American singer and actor. He has been a popular R&B and pop music performer since the early 1990s. By the 2000s, Raymond was among the most popular performers in his genre, and achieved significant sales and chart success from his albums and singles.
After a reasonably successful self-titled debut, Raymond stormed the charts with My Way, which featured the hit singles "You Make Me Wanna", "Nice and Slow", and the title track. Its follow-up, 8701, included hits such as "U Remind Me", "U Got It Bad", and "U Don't Have to Call". His 2004 album Confessions sold over a million copies in the United States in its first week of release, selling the greatest amount of records in one week for any R&B artist, and has topped the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. The first single from the album "Yeah!" featuring Ludacris and Lil Jon has topped the US Billboard Hot 100, European, Australian, World, US and World R&B charts, World Adult, Norwegian, Swiss, Dutch and the UK charts in 2004, and it also reached number 2 in Canada. Usher won a Grammy Award for "Best Male R&B Vocal" in the Grammy Awards of 2001 for "U Remind Me" off his 8701 album. Confessions sold over 9 million copies making it the best selling CD in the United States for the year 2004.
