Usher Once Shared He Doesn’t ‘Sleep to This Day’ Because of Diddy
Music mogul Diddy has helped launch a lot of successful artists like Biggie Smalls and Lil’ Kim back in his heyday. He also had a hand in giving a young Usher Raymond his first push into superstardom. But there were certain habits Usher learned from Diddy that proved hard to shake off.
Usher revealed what it was like to be mentored by Diddy
Usher has been very open about Diddy’s contributions to his success. At the age of 15, when he was barely a teenager, Usher was sent to live with Diddy after proving himself as a potential artist. The program Usher was invited to was known as Puffy Flavor camp, and was designed to further hone an artist’s potential as a star. Usher was the youngest out of everyone there, and experienced Diddy’s glamorous lifestyle firsthand.
“I’d never experienced anything like that. I remember flying all over the place. We’d go to Los Angeles, we’d go to Miami,” Usher once recalled in an interview on The Howard Stern Show.
In a recent interview with Club Shay Shay, Usher revisited his time with the controversial music mogul once again. Although he’d seen many things that might’ve been confusing for him at that age, Usher credited Diddy for his growth as an artist.
“That man helped me understand life,” Usher said. “He helped me understand what it was to be an artist, he helped me understand what it was to be passionate about something. He helped me understand culture. He helped me understand business at a different level, because I’m seeing him go from his independence to then becoming Puff Daddy. And I got a front row seat looking at that. Thank God that I had that experience.”
Perhaps what Usher learned the most from Diddy, though, was his tireless work ethic. Diddy was known for working long hours in order to tend to his business, and it was a habit that Usher picked up.
“I don’t sleep to this day,” Usher once told Oprah. “I got it from him. I mean this is a dude who just never slept. I mean, he’s probably the first one to get up and the last one to go to sleep, and that commitment I picked up.”
Usher wouldn’t pass on his experience with Diddy while mentoring Justin Bieber
Years after Usher established himself as an artist, he’d find himself being a role model and mentor of sorts to other younger artists. One of them was Justin Bieber, whose career he helped shape. Similarly to Usher, Bieber was discovered when he was still a kid. He’d quickly secure a record deal due to his talents and singing. So, it’s easy to see why Usher might’ve taken Bieber under his wing. However, Usher wanted to be a different mentor to Bieber than Diddy was to him. Especially amid rumors that Usher was pressured into drugs and other vices under the mogul’s roof.
“I had Puff as my mentor, but I wouldn’t pass on any of the advice he gave me,” Usher once told MTV News (via Global Grind). “Hip-hop, sex, drugs and alcohol wouldn’t really work for Justin’s image. He’s headed in the right direction. I’ve told him to do everything I wouldn’t do.”
What Usher regretted about this potential super hip hop group with Diddy
Diddy already produced a couple of Usher’s records, but at one point he and the singer were supposed to work together even more closely. There was a pitch that they would join a super hip hop group with two other artists.
“JAY-Z, Pharrell, Diddy, and me was supposed to be a group. Yeah, that’s crazy,” Usher said. “I didn’t say, ‘No.’ I didn’t say, ‘Yeah.’ I think that we just got caught up. We all got caught up in the moment. We was talking about it and having secret meetings about it.”
But plans fell through, which the music star always regretted.
“We was talking about music and how we was gonna flip it, and the business of it. Somehow, we just got distracted, and it never happened. That’s one that I actually wish would have happened,” he said.
