Who Mentored Usher?
Interview Watch the video of Usher.
Watch a public service announcement featuring Usher in support of National Mentoring Month.
Usher is a Grammy Award-winning American R&B and pop singer and an actor. He is also the founder of Usher’s New Look, a nonprofit established to help create avenues for young people to enter the business side of the sports and entertainment industries.
I think it’s important for us to believe in one another’s capabilities. If I didn’t have someone to believe in me, I wouldn’t be the individual I am today. Neither would I strive for new territory or new direction or to believe in myself.
For years and years, I’ve been invited to be a part of other philanthropic efforts, as well as just to give my time and participation to those in need. It took a while for me to find out what I felt like would be inspiring, as well as fulfilling for me as an individual.
I’ve always been very giving; I’ve always had a willingness to teach others. What am I able to do with all the experiences of my past other than to share them and they become gems or direction for those in need. So when I decided to start the New Look Foundation, it was exactly the mentoring program that my life would have represented by way of all of the individuals who had taught me – to teach kids, to offer kids a new alternative, to teach them about the business side of the sports and entertainment industries…The fact that there are very successful individuals that come from the inner city or come from broken homes or are considered at-risk youth…they need direction. So, this mentoring program, or this Foundation would give them that opportunity, for someone to believe in them, someone to encourage them to think outside of the box and know that there is an alternative direction. True indeed, everybody may not be a basketball player or a football player, but there are so many other alternatives and all that believe in the New Look, believe in me, is the model that they walk away from when they leave my camp and when they leave my direction.