“I Cry” by Usher

The reason the narrator (Usher) is ‘crying’ is due to the state of the world which he finds himself in. More specifically, Usher came out with this song in the midst of and in response to the wave of concurrent Black Lives Matter protests. And this is not simply a case of him dropping your standard social justice tune, as has become the rage of the day. Yes, he does emotionally sympathize with victims of police brutality and on a more-macrocosmic level the likes of women who have lost loved ones and “sons without fathers”.

However, the title of this song is also meant to point to the idea of Usher espousing sensitivity in general. Simply put, he wants his own sons to know that, contrary to dominant machismo ideologies, it is acceptable for a man to also be overtaken with emotion – as Usher himself apparently is in this song.

The release date of this song, via a label called Brand Usher LLC, was on 26 June 2020.

Officially it premiered the following day, 27 June 2020. It’s outdooring happened as part of a virtual concert called “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future”. And said event was organized in the name of combating systemic racism and the coronavirus pandemic.

Usher co-wrote “I Cry” alongside N. Atweh and G. Gitelman.

The latter two artists also produced the tune in conjunction with Bengineer Chang.

At the time of the release of “I Cry”, it wasn’t associated with any Usher album.