USHER - USHER DIDN'T RECOGNISE YEAH!'S HIT POTENTIAL

USHER DIDN'T RECOGNISE YEAH!'S HIT POTENTIAL

R&B superstar USHER almost shelved plans to include his hit single YEAH! on his CONFESSIONS album, after learning producer LIL JON had given the same beat to another artist.
The singer released the track, the first single from the Grammy winning disc, in early 2004 and it went on to top pop charts across the world, including a 12-week stint atop the U.S. pop countdown.
Yeah! later claimed the title of best-performing single in the U.S. in 2004, and was named the most-played song of the year by America's Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems.
But Usher admits the song nearly ended up being cut from the CD because rapper Petey Pablo had used the same beat for his single Freek-a-Leek, which was released in the same year as Yeah!.
He tells MTV, "No one knows that Yeah! almost didn't make the album. Lil Jon produced Yeah!, and once we finished the record we did a little research on the record only to find out that Freek-A-Leek by Petey Pablo had the same beat.
"At times I wonder if it would have made a difference if the beat was never changed. Nobody knew it was going to be that huge of a record."