Usher’s Super Bowl halftime show performance will be one of the longest in recent years, clocking in at 15 minutes.
“I can’t explain why, but it’s a funny thing that I was able to do and craft,” Usher, 45, told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published on Wednesday, February 7. “That was a huge strategic thing that happened between me and my agency.”
Super Bowl halftime performers are typically allotted a 13-minute set in the middle of the big game, but Usher insisted that he couldn’t cut two minutes off his plans.
“[It is] one of the greatest celebrations ever,” he teased of his performance. “I would hope that people would feel excited — whether they knew my music or they just got to meet me for the first time — and that I’m all passion, man. And that this 8-year-old, who now is a 45-year-old, feels just as free as the first time that I thought any of this could be possible.”
Usher’s set at Super Bowl LVIII from Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium on Sunday, February 11 will succeed Rihanna. (The Fenty founder, 35, performed during Super Bowl LVII in February 2023, even announcing her second pregnancy mid-show.)
“Rihanna’s was fire because of the choreography and the way they did something that felt like a concert,” Usher added to EW. “It actually was a great deal of inspiration [for] how I began to think of my show. If you ever came to my residency, it was all about being immersed — being immersed in an experience that is all of these things that wouldn’t necessarily go together.”
Usher’s performance will also pay homage to Black History Month.
“I think about what our country has kind of represented for Black artists, you know, having to at some point go through kitchens to even be able to perform for an audience, but they had to leave back through that same door, fear for their lives as they went to the next state to do the same thing,” he told Good Morning America earlier this month. “So I’m coming through the front door with this one.
The “My Boo” singer added, “I didn’t start where I am now, and I didn’t get there by myself. So, everybody that has been a part of it, I’m carrying them with me. All of my fans, my loved ones, the people who may have felt like they have been forgotten, they haven’t. I’m carrying you right with me when I walk on that stage that night.”
