Usher Terry Raymond IV (born October 14, 1978) known mononymously as Usher, is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. Born in Dallas, but raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee was where he lived until moving to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 12 where his mother put him in local singing competiitons all over the city. At one of these competitions is where he would catch the eye of a music A&R from LaFace Records. In August 1994 he released his self-titled debut album, Usher with the lead singles "Can U Get Wit It" and "Think of You". He rose to fame in the late 1990s with the release of his second album My Way (1997), which spawned his first U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one hit, "Nice & Slow". The album has been certified 6-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). My Way also earned Usher his first Grammy Award nomination for his debut single "You Make Me Wanna" that reached number-one on the Rhythmic Top 40, Hot Dance Singles Sales, and US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts. His follow-up album, 8701, produced the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "U Remind Me" and "U Got It Bad". Also from this album "U Don't Have to Call" won Usher his second consecutive Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 2003.

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of tonality, rhythm, the use of sustained tones and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung without accompaniment or with accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in a group of other musicians, such as in a choir of singers with different voice ranges, or in an ensemble with instrumentalists, such as a rock group or baroque ensemble. Singers may also perform as soloist with accompaniment from a piano (as in art song and in some jazz styles) or with a symphony orchestra or big band. There are a range of different singing styles, including art music styles such as opera and Chinese opera, religious music styles such as Gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues and popular music styles such as pop and rock.

Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised. It may be done for religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice. If practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific musical genre, such as classical or rock, although there are singers with crossover success (singing in more than one genre). They typically take voice training provided by voice teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers.

Singer Motors Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturing business, originally a bicycle manufacturer founded as Singer & Co by George Singer, in 1874 in Coventry, England. Singer & Co's bicycle manufacture continued. From 1901 George Singer's Singer Motor Co made cars and commercial vehicles.

Singer Motor Co was the first motor manufacturer to make a small economy car that was a replica of a large car, showing a small car was a practical proposition. It was much more sturdily built than otherwise similar cyclecars. With its four-cylinder ten horsepower engine the Singer Ten was launched at the 1912 Cycle and Motor Cycle Show at Olympia. William Rootes, Singer apprentice at the time of its development and consummate car-salesman, contracted to buy 50, the entire first year's supply. It became a best-seller. Ultimately Singer's business was acquired by his Rootes Group in 1956, which continued the brand until 1970, a few years following Rootes' acquisition by the American Chrysler corporation.

The Singer was a naval mine made and deployed by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. It was a manually laid moored contact mine.

Development

During the American Civil War, Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate government official established the Torpedo Bureau and the Torpedo Corps in Richmond, Virginia to oversee the development and deployment of new types of naval mines. Maury was convinced that the only way to defend the coastlines against Union assaults was through the widespread use of naval mines. Mines were inexpensive and easily produced on a large scale. The low cost and large volume of mines produced would supplement the small naval forces of the Confederacy and make it possible to defend against the superior fleet of the Union navy. The efforts of the Torpedo Bureau and the Torpedo Corps proved to be worth the investment of the Confederacy. For the relative low cost of the mines they did a tremendous amount of damage to the Union forces, sinking a total of 27 Union naval vessels.

Usher may refer to:

Usher is a 2004 film written and directed by Roger Leatherwood. It is loosely adapted from the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of a young hitman who falls on hard times and gets a job in a movie theatre. The theatre seems to have a personality of its own and the hitman, named Ash, finds himself losing his personality as he falls into a day-to-day work routine.

The feature film premiered at the 2004 Telluride Indie Film Festival (now defunct) and won Best Feature. Additionally, Thomas Alexander won the award for "Best Actor in a Feature" from Wicked Pixel's 2004 "Cinema Edge" awards and was reviewed by Film Threat magazine (online) and Shock Cinema.

Since November 2009 the film has been being posted in short non-sequential segments, one a week, by ArtOverLife Studios.

Roger Leatherwood directed the short animated film "Lieing Man" in 2008.

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Usher is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: