The story behind Usher’s “Yeah” and how the song was almost lost

If we were talking about the hits that brought down the music industry in the 2000s, “Yes!” by Usher cannot be missing from the songs. A party theme that in 2004 monopolized every corner, from radio to television. And believe it or not, There is a strange story behind the song.

After I said that, Did you know that the R&B singer really didn’t want the song on his album? Confessions? Although we know that this track is the most popular of the artist’s career, at first he wasn’t really convinced to even record it.

The story of “Yeah!” by Usher

The thing is that Confessions Usher’s album was conceived as a pure R&B album.with a conceptual line that seemed emotional and even melancholic.

It is said that the material is mainly from because the singer’s relationship with Rozonda “Chili” Thomas became so complicateda member of the hip-hop group TLC, which eventually ended in a breakup.

It’s even known that Usher wanted the album’s lead single to be “Burn,” a song that talks about exactly that how a love relationship deteriorates. It was by far the artist’s favorite song, released as the album’s lead single… but that didn’t happen.

Usher had presented several songs to those responsible for his label Confessions, but they told him that the disk was incomplete. The argument was that while the songs were good, they lacked an anthem; There would be something on the radio that would make the clubs/discotheques pop.

So they reached out one of the “party” producers and personalities of the hip-hop/rap scene… Lil Jon.

Lil Jon’s introduction to the song

Back then, Lil Jon, who came from Atlanta, was known for his unmistakable image, his sparkling charisma and, above all, as a pioneer of what was then called that Crunk, a more aggressive subgenre of rap that was gradually absorbed by the pop industry in the 2000s.

Jon (real name Jonathan Smith) was the one who brought this style to the upper echelons of the scene mainstream, and his contribution to “Yeah!” Usher is considered the point at which crunk went mainstream.

It should be mentioned that before internationalization Lil Jon worked as an executive and producer for So So Def Records, a record label founded in Atlanta in the 1990s by Jermaine Dupri.another big name in the rap scene at the time.

Over time, Dupri began to gain a foothold in the industry, and soon enough He was appointed president of the record company Aristawho had a bit of a shady past with the whole Milli Vanilli thing.

But around the 2000s, Arista (now owned by Sony Music) restructured together with the management LA Reid and Jermaine Dupri at the helm and began signing some of today’s most well-known artists, such as: Pink, Avril Lavigne, Outkast… and yes, Usher too.

Thanks to Reid and Jermaine, contact between them was established Usher and Lil Jon, knowing that the latter could help the R&B idol to produce the song they had to release as their first single Confessions. But not everything was so simple, er…

Lil Jon and the slew of beats he planned for Usher’s “Yeah.”

Eventually, Lil Jon set out to make several beats for “Yeah!” by Usher. And at the same time the producer from Atlanta He worked on creating rhythms for other artists such as rapper Mystikalthen represented by Jive Records.

Jon offered Mystikal several blows, and he took two or three. But Jonathan didn’t expect that Jive Records took back some of his compositions to offer them to other artists. Trazzzzzz….

This is how the beat that Lil Jon originally created for “Yeah” ended up in the rapper’s hands. Petey Pablo, who used it for the song “Freek-A-Leek.”.

Lil Jon did everything he could to get Petey Pablo and Jive Records to take everything back, but as mentioned in Stereogum, the record company had already printed the single on vinyl. They could not take the song back because they were aware of the great economic damage that canceling the release would have meant.

So Jon set out to compose another entirely new beat for Usher’s “Yeah.” And that’s how, with the synthesizer, came the instrumental piece we all know Despite the minimalist nature of its composition, it was infectious and achieved its goal (also by Ludacris in the rap part of the song).

What do you think of the story of Usher’s “Yeah”? You can take a look here Behind the song x Sopitas.comwhere we tell you more great stories that shaped the most famous songs known.