Usher really likes fireworks — from at least 200 feet away.
“This year, I’m not burning my thumbs,” he quips. “And I’m not going to break my neck trying to get away from that firework that I lit. ’Cause I try that every year — to do the big firecracker in my backyard where I light the wick, or you gotta light five of them and run away from them before it shoots off. I tried that s - - t, it didn’t work.”
The 34-year-old R&B singer, who recently wrapped up a stint as a coach on “The Voice,” is taking the reins as “curator” of this year’s Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks. The show, “It Begins With a Spark,” marks the first time in its 37 years that Macy’s has collaborated with a celebrity artist for the summer spectacle.
But what does a “curator” actually do?
A lot, says Usher. “I have agonized over making sure that the show is perfect — from giving them visual references, giving them design cues, colors, ideas. I mean, I wanted to see a winking smile. I hope to see hearts and stars in the sky. If I have a song called ‘Diamonds’ — can we have diamonds in the sky?”
Onstage, Usher can match a lyric to a dance move. For the pyrotechnics show, he’s deciding which fireworks go off at which musical moment.
But before he began, he talked with organizers about previous Macy’s Independence Day shows.
“I wanted to beat it,” he says, displaying a competitive spirit, “or at least understand what I was up against.” Only then did he start assembling a soundtrack. Usher’s 25-minute mix runs the gamut from classic (Frank Sinatra) to Top 40 (Rihanna) to country (his “Voice” pal Blake Shelton) to his own greatest hits.
The set opens on a patriotic note with a “Star-Spangled Banner” mash-up of Jimi Hendrix’s Woodstock version and a traditional take by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. He calls the mix “seamless,” boasting, “It almost felt like they were literally on the same stage playing.”
Up to 1,600 shells will be shot per minute — the singer even gets his own firework shell, “Usher red.”
Usher says matching the blasts to the music was a blast.
“That was a major, major part of what I felt was going to make my experience a lot different,” he says. “Because there are certain crescendos in the song that need to be represented by specific bursts.”
Creating the show was an emotional experience for Usher, who found himself focusing on the concept of change.
“It’s about celebrating my independence and celebrating my individuality as an African-American in America, being able to influence change and also use this paradigm of art to curate an all-American experience,” he says.
Usher also assures us that he’s made the show for everyone, from grandmas to 5-year-olds watching for the first time.
“Yeah, I could have made the entire show patriotic and [used] a ton of songs that kind of have the sound of going into battle,” he says. “But I felt like America represents a merge of old and new. That stuck with me.”
Patriotic playlist
Usher sounds off on why he chose some of the songs included in his score.
‘ALL OF THE LIGHTS,’ KANYE WEST & CO.
“The song just sounded like a great opener. When you walk in, it’s like a battle. You hear the drums, you hear the horn. So that to me was a great kickoff.”
‘STRONGER,’ KELLY CLARKSON
“[She was] introduced on an all-American show, and being made kind of an ‘American Idol’ by America’s votes — that right there is the optimism of what America offers at this time.”
‘A CHANGE IS GONNA COME,’ SAM COOKE
“The song was really a strategic, specific choice for me, based off of just everything that we’ve overcome, man. Here you can go as deep as the fact that we as African-Americans were not even able to walk around or be social in the same way. And now here we have an opportunity to effect change in policy.”
‘SAVE THE WORLD,’ SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA
“That was a song that I felt not only represented the message of what it is to be patriotic, but also the music lends [itself] to a firework show.”
‘DIAMONDS,’ RIHANNA
“Even though she’s not from America, her story is something I think everybody can identify with.”