Usher has revealed a number of hidden tributes and Easter eggs from his Super Bowl halftime show.
In an interview with The Breakfast Club on Monday (February 19), the “Yeah!” singer revealed that he subtly paid homage to several icons during the performance, calling it “an education” for viewers.
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“What you don’t realize is that there are so many gems you have yet to unlock. You only caught one,” the singer said after Charlamagne Tha God noted that Ursh paid tribute to Michael Jackson during the show.
“You caught Michael. Did you catch Marvin [Gaye]? Did you catch the back leg pop for James Brown?”
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Usher also revealed that he went shirtless to honor Bobby Brown (see here for a quintessential example) and wore a tank top as a nod to Teddy Pendergrass.
He said that moments in the show paid tribute as well to Luther Vandross, among others.
“The piano moment was Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway,” he added.
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“I’m delivering in all things that I do when I bring the culture of what I am and what has made me who I am everywhere I go, even right now.”
Modern Drummer revealed another Easter egg in Usher’s Super Bowl show: an empty golden drum set that was placed on stage in remembrance of Aaron Spears, the beloved drummer for Usher and many others such as Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Lil Wayne.
During that same Breakfast Club interview, Usher also addressed his controversial hug with Alicia Keys at the Super Bowl, as well as the time he slapped his head off Nicki Minaj’s butt.
“In no way should anything done there be viewed as bad or perverted or anything like that. It was literally about having fun because of a song that me and Alicia made many years ago,” he explained. “And we celebrated because of the legacy of it. And no disrespect to anybody or anything like that.”
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Charlamagne Tha God then asked Usher if he, Keys and her husband Swizz Beatz have shared a laugh about the reactions to the hug.
The “Caught Up” star replied: “Absolutely we laughed about it. It’s crazy how people [focused on] that. It’s all about how you present things, man. But it’s all love.”
Usher also discussed slapping his head off Nicki Minaj’s rear when they performed together at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards, which went viral again after his Super Bowl performance.
“That was Jamaican culture,” he said. “That was just a moment that was fun. And by the way, that was me playing my bass so I would have probably bumped my shoulder or my hand, but I had my bass in my hand so I just bopped off her body a little bit.
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“Go back and look at the video and you’ll understand ’cause I did it there for the first time. That was a little bit of Jamaican culture.”
