Prologue PROLOGUE
I’M STANDING IN the tunnel, and the whole shit feels surreal.

The waiting does something to your emotions. Nobody’s talking. And I’m a little antsy.

Like, Oh, shit, we’re about to do this…

The lights go down, the stagehands put us in place, and I’m on the field, looking out at the crowd.

Wow, look at all those people. Sixty thousand in the stadium and millions watching around the world.

But I’m not nervous. I never get nervous. Never.

Arrrggghh!

It’s raw emotion. It’s energy. I can feel it running through me. I’m ready to punch somebody in the chest. I might just run onto the field and start tackling somebody.

I’m confident. I’m gonna kill my performance. I don’t know this for a fact, of course. I could trip, fall, or make a fool of myself.

But I’m manifesting it. I’m visualizing it.

This is Usher’s highly anticipated halftime show at Super Bowl LVIII. I’ve spent the last six months as the show’s musical director. I’ve helped Usher pick the right songs, sequence the correct order, and, at his request, will help him close out with a bang.

Usher inches deeper into the show. He does “Caught Up,” “U Don’t Have to Call,” and “Love in This Club.” He sings, dances, and moves like a ball of smoke, from one place to another, a proverbial sun around which a zillion other things appear to orbit. Then Alicia Keys sits behind a red piano, singing “My Boo,” their beloved duet.

Nobody in the stadium knows I’m here. There are just rumors. For weeks, my phone’s been blowing up. Media calling. Friends calling. Industry people hitting me up out the blue.

You doing the halftime show? But I don’t say shit. It’s the NFL Super Bowl!

Halfway through the show, Usher brings out another guest—H.E.R., in a patent leather outfit, red guitar in hand, ripping on “U Got It Bad.”

My time is getting closer. I’m still waiting. Within me, the energy is growing more. The music, the lights, the crowd—I feel it all. Something is coming over me, like I’m transforming. I’m Bruce Banner, turning into the Incredible Hulk.

Then Usher is roller-skating back and forth. He segues into “OMG,” and it’s moving fast—remember, he’s got a million hits and only thirteen minutes to perform.

Until, finally…

“Las Vegas, are you ready to get crazy!!!!”

It’s a major moment—my moment—the chance to bring the show to a whole ’nother level. When the beat drops on “Turn Down for What,” the camera cuts to me and I’m in the middle of a crowd. There’s a wild scene around me, a real mosh pit. It’s a total vibe shift and it makes my segment stand out.

This is crucial because you only get once in a lifetime to be in front of that many people. Later, I learned it was 123.4 million viewers, the biggest audience for a TV event since the 1969 moon landing. But like I said, it was no nerves or anything. It was simply my time to shine.

The song switches again.

Bah bump, bah bomp… bah bomp, bah bump.

The synthesizer line drags out, solo. You gotta tease ’em a little bit.

The anticipation builds. We’ve come this far, we’re about to bring the whole world to a climax.

It’s the finale, the biggest song of the twenty-first century—“Yeah!”

What a blessing to be onstage performing the song twenty years after it came out. A million songs come out each week. A million artists have come and gone since then.

But we’re still here. On the biggest stage possible. Performing a song that might have never come out if I weren’t willing to jump in and get my hands dirty. Now the music is immortal. It’ll be getting played long after I’m gone. Just like a lot of the songs that I’ve been behind.

Now, you may know me as the King of Crunk. You may know me as the guy with the hits you made unforgettable memories to. You may know me from your TV screen. Or maybe you know me from Las Vegas, where you got fucking crazy at my DJ gigs (I probably poured you a couple shots).

But I honestly believe you don’t know who I am. You’ve seen a version of me. You have an idea. I’m the party guy, the wild guy, the guy who says those three words (“Yeah!” “What?” “Okay!”).

Well, I am far more than that. And I’m here to peel back the curtain, give you a glimpse of my life and everything that made me who I am. I will show you where I come from and how I got to where I am today.

Because it’s crazy that the same guy on that Super Bowl stage started out in a little basement in southwest Atlanta. It’s even crazier that I took what I did in the basement to the clubs, and that those same clubs inspired my first records, which, at first, nobody wanted to play.

It’s difficult to imagine today, when so many of these songs are considered classics. But you wouldn’t believe how many times, in the early days, someone told me: “These are just chants. These songs will never get played. It’s impossible.”

But I did it. Not only did I do it, but I did it at the highest level. I had my hand in some of the key moments and movements that shaped musical history.

This book is a light into that world—the world that created me and the world I created.

This is my origin story.

LET’S GO!