UPDATE: Usher has announced his new album Hard II Love, set for release on Sept. 16 and now available for pre-order on iTunes. Fans who pre-order will immediately get the album tracks “Missin U” and “Champions (from the Motion Picture Hands of Stone).” The latter is featured in the film of the same name, out today, in which Usher stars as boxer Sugar Ray Leonard.
Hard II Love.
Pre-order now —- https://t.co/B3BCvaHd9H pic.twitter.com/ze0YEwDXtb— Usher Raymond IV (@Usher) August 26, 2016
ORIGINAL STORY: After hitting the promo trail for his latest film Hands of Stone, Usher could be rolling out his eighth studio effort Hard II Love (via RCA Records) next month. “That is the current plan, but it could change,” a source tells Billboard of the project that popped up on an iTunes link in New Zealand with a cover and release date.
Originally titled Flawed per a Twitter video of Usher with New York artist Daniel Arsham posted in January, the album could include Usher’s latest releases like the Young Thug collaboration “No Limit,” “Crash” and “Champions” from the Hands of Stone soundtrack.
Watch Usher Bust a Move (Or Three) in ‘No Limit’ Video Feat. Young Thug
In June, Usher made an appearance during the Cannes Lions Festival and offered a bit about the album title, then called Flawed. “I find the inspiration every time I find a word: What is ‘flawed?’ It’s something that is not perfect. It’s a future relic of some sorts, to grow and blossom and gain texture,” he explained. “But it is those things, those tumultuous occurrences and things that happen in your life that define what it is, and in our country and us as people. All of these things are standards, and I became the inspiration. Now I can’t tell you yet at the end what it’s gonna be, but right now it’s Flawed.”
The follow-up LP to 2012’s Looking for Myself could drop Sept. 16.