We are living in the year of Usher. With just two days to go before he takes the stage for the Super Bowl halftime show, the king of R&B has released his ninth studio album, Coming Home, his first solo record since 2016; it comes, of course, on the heels of a successful residency in Las Vegas and a newly announced tour set to commence this summer. A jam-packed schedule is nothing new for the hitmaker, who told Vanity Fair that preparing for Sunday’s halftime show has “really been a process.”

“I’m learning something at the age of 45. It is to savor the moment. Days are becoming shorter. Weeks are becoming shorter. Years feel like months now; they go by so fast. I’m just trying to savor every bit of it and just enjoy it,” he said of the forthcoming show.

“The anticipation that I’m feeling and the excitement that people have, the calls I’ve gotten, the support that I’ve gotten from fans, the outpouring of messages around what it’s going to be and how many people are going to tune in—it feels really, really, really promising.”

Usher recently spoke with VF about preparing for Super Bowl Sunday, releasing his new music, and bringing Atlanta to Las Vegas.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Vanity Fair: Can you talk about your inspiration for the halftime show?

Usher: Something very magical happened here in Las Vegas during my residency, where I was able to bring all of my worlds together. I basically turned Las Vegas into Atlanta. I brought that melting pot that is Atlanta in a culture to Las Vegas. I wanted to bring that to a stadium. So what I did for the show, I put my residency on steroids and I brought it to another level. For those of you who didn’t get a chance to make it to the residency, this will be like the level above 10 times of what that was.

With a career spanning 30 years, was it hard to choose the set list?

It is hard; the bane of my musical director’s existence. IZ and Bobby Avila and Lil Jon were the musical directors for this Super Bowl.

I thought a lot about the moments that people remember and also took the opportunity that I would have to create a memorable moment. What you should expect from a live artist’s performance, I tried to push that forward, but that’s a lot to do in 12 minutes. I wasn’t able to fit in as many of the songs I wanted to, but I gave you enough of each of the songs that had a meaningful impact on my career. And that’s it. I tried some new things and introduced a few things that probably people wouldn’t have expected. Without telling you too much, I tried some things fashionably that I feel are going to be memorable for the fashion industry.

Can you speak more to the fashion and what you will be wearing?

There’s a moment in the show that I specifically designed myself. Not often does an artist use this as an opportunity to introduce another aspect of them creatively.

Did you collaborate with any particular designer, like Pharrell?

This portion of the collaboration was based on the work of my team, who put the entire show together. But it is an opportunity to introduce a bit of a culture that I am curating around [roller] skating.

Congratulations on your ninth studio album, Coming Home. What do you want longtime fans and new listeners to take away from this new album?

Never give up on what you believe in. Remain passionate, and it’s okay to be vulnerable. Creating this has been a process that has spanned over the last six years of my life. And not just consistently recording for six years, but living and reflecting and then finding inspiration, and then writing about it and then thinking about it and finding the right musicians or the right mixers and the right people to just continue to lift it up and make it great.

Collaborating with L.A. [Reid] once again, who I started my career with, now working with him feels like a coming-home. I’m hoping that it will be a love letter received by my fans. I am mindful of the fact that I’m making music that I think the world should listen to and be able to feel something from. But my fans specifically, if they’ve been watching my life, which I know they have been supporting, they understand what I’m talking about. They understand what nuance is there, so they know that there’s something specially specific for them.

Why did you choose Coming Home as the title? Are you speaking to anyone specifically?

It’s a result of my personal experiences that inspired this journey that I was on for the last six years. I’ve been living my life outside of that, and I’m coming home. If you look outside, sometimes you get lost, but coming home and being able to look inside, you’ll find it all. You realize that that’s where it all is. It has a multitude of meanings, like a double or triple entendre. As a result of my journey around, outside, through things, coming back home as an independent artist, introducing my first album, it’s a coming-home experience. Culminating around working with some of the producers that I’ve worked with in the past, working with new producers, trying new things, being explorative and trying to engineer new creative ideas, at least for myself—all of that is what coming home means to me.

I went to Africa, so if you hear songs like “Ruin” with Afrobeat music, that isn’t something that was natural for me; it was a bit of a reach outside of my comfort zone. And I really hope that the community that loves that kind of music, and also my fan base, will enjoy it as well.

Do you have any favorite songs from the album?

Well, I said one, “Ruin,” but I don’t know if I have a favorite. Each and every one of them have some relevance to something that I’m trying to convey, share, and offer as a piece of art. I did approach this like, This is something that is my view and my energy and my idea, and I hope that you get it. The hardest part has been just getting over the fact that I had to release it. I had to give it away. As a creative, you love something until you hate it and you figure it out what you’re going to change and what you’re going to change, and then you hate it again and then you love it. And then eventually you finally reach a point where you’re like, You know what, it’s ready to go. I think I’ve done enough. I need to now let people receive it the way they want to receive it. Whether they feel negative or positive is on them.

Going back to Atlanta, I love that you incorporate Atlanta in everything that you do. On your new album, you have a song called “A-Town Girl”; Atlanta was represented throughout your residency; your promo video for the Super Bowl halftime show felt like it was a piece of Atlanta—so what does Atlanta mean to you?

Atlanta has always been the epicenter for the South’s creativity. It’s been the epicenter for Black entrepreneurship to me. The type of things that can happen in that place are magical. It is our melting pot; it is our place where all things come together. Atlanta is a major city—it’s no different than New York or Miami or Los Angeles or Dallas or any of those other places. To me, Atlanta is a major, major thing and it needs to be celebrated in the same way. So that’s why I’ve always made it a part of the culture, because it’s been so significant to me and gave me legs to stand on.

This year is a big year for you—it’s the 30th anniversary of your self-titled debut album. It’s the 20th anniversary of Confessions, one your biggest-selling albums. You’re releasing your ninth studio album and you’re playing the Super Bowl. It’s the year of Usher Raymond. What would 16-year-old Usher say to Usher today?

Don’t quit. I would say, “I know I can’t convince you, because I know you’re not going to quit anyway, but enjoy it a little bit more. Take the time to really enjoy it, even though I know you’re not going to, because I know you’re a hard worker and you’re not going to listen.” That’s part of what it takes in order to be what I am, to not be able to listen, to be convicted so much so that you can’t even hear anything else, or anybody else, other than what you’re thinking in your mind. You have to care less what people think and care more about what you think. Just fuck it!

Since I’m sure performing at the Super Bowl is something you’re checking off your bucket list, what’s next for you?

I don’t want to be shortsighted in trying to say what I think it’s going to be. What I know it’s going to be is more of everything. More business, more music, more love, more intention, more healing, more help—more. I do believe that when you finally realize that by way of belief in manifestation in what you say, you can make things happen, you have to be careful about what you ask for, because you will get it. But I do want more and I do plan on giving you more.

Hopefully you entertain doing a masterclass or some type of life-coaching series for the future.

Well, you know I am a doctor. A doctor of music, that is!