Following his Super Bowl performance, Usher’s next move feels nostalgic.
Talking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he plans to remake Lloyd’s 2007 hit “Get It Shawty” and add it as a bonus track on his latest album, Coming Home. The song was originally produced by Usher’s brother, James “JLack” Lackey, for Usher but was never released. Lloyd later acquired the rights to the track with Usher’s permission.
“So not to discredit what Lloyd did with the song, but my brother originally made the song and I heard it,” Usher told AJC’s DeAsia Paige. “It was J Lack’s first placement as my producer. I cut the song, but I never put it out. And he was like, ‘I really do want this song to come out. Are you going to put it out right now?’ And I said, ‘I can’t tell you I’m going to put it out right now, but I love it.”
“So he was like, ‘Can I give it to Lloyd?’ Jazze Pha hit me. Both him and Keith Thomas were like, ‘Yo, I think that Lloyd’s going to love the record.” I said, ‘Okay, we’ll play for him. See if he loves it.” He loved it. So J. Lack felt like it would be best to have Lloyd have the record, and he did, and it’s a successful song.”
Usher got the idea for the remake from the tradition of musicians recording cover versions of the greatest songs. “If you go back to the fifties, it didn’t matter how many times there were standards, everybody could cut the same record,” said Usher. “You know how many versions of, I Heard It Through The Grapevine there are? You know how many versions of, Tears Of a Cloud there are, or the classic songs? So our new songs are just as classic as the old ones, if we choose to make them classics, we got to change how we look at any of it and be able to learn from the things that we know worked in terms of understanding even the business of it.”
He continued: “If my brother has a record that becomes a standard that I cover and another artist cover and another artist covers, it’s just more impressions for his child, for himself, and also too, as a intellectual property. So I was like, “I want to try it,” and plus I love the song and I want to do my version of it.”
Lloyd approved the remake upon Usher’s request. Usher credited L.A. Reid for the original idea and feels confident that the song will be a hit once again. “I actually asked Lloyd, so I was like, ‘Yo, Lloyd, I really want to cut the record again,” said Usher. “He was like, ‘Of course.’ Him and J. Lack thought it was a cool idea. Actually, it was L.A.’s idea originally, but once I got into it I was like, ‘Yeah, I think this is going to be one.”
“Get It Shawty” appears on Lloyd’s 2007 sophomore album, Street Love (Motown). According to the RIAA, the hit song contributed to the album’s achieving Gold certification. Lloyd has often mentioned in past interviews that Usher allowed him to use the song.
Usher’s “Past, Present, and Future” world tour starts this Summer. In May, he’ll perform Confessions in its entirety for its 20th anniversary at the Lovers & Friends Festival in Las Vegas.