Usher, “Lil Freak” | After Dark 🕛 🌃

In the 38^th edition of After Dark (2022), we explore the naughty, risqué, & sexual vibes behind, “Lil Freak” by Usher. 

Innuendo? More like full-on sexual vibes! Welcome to After Dark 🕛 🌃, a column featuring songs that are best suited for nighttime, specifically, the bedroom.  Many of the records featured here raise eyebrows, as well as the temperature! These After Dark tunes focus on the universal three-letter word:  SEX. The dark records gracing After Dark are old and new alike, with all genres of music welcome.  In the 38^th edition of After Dark (2022), we explore the naughty, risqué, & sexual vibes behind, 🎵 “Lil Freak” by 🎙 Usher. 

Theme & Lyrics ✍

“He at home but he done fucked up / I swooped his girl up / And what I’m about to do you, he’ll feel I did him wrong.” Well, honestly, there’s no doubt in my mind that 🏆 Grammy-winning R&B artist 🎙 Usher could manage to ‘swoop up’ almost anybody’s girl.  Back in 2010, he did with a lit, post- 💿 Confessions hit, 🎵 “Lil Freak”. “Lil Freak” appears as the fourth track on 💿 Raymond v Raymond and enlists the talents of a then, flaming hot 🎙 Nicki Minaj, who, is true-to-self (“These girls want a Minaj, yeah, they wetter than a Rainman / Usher, buzz me in, everybody loves Raymond”). 

“If you’re coming with me, really coming with me / You let her put her hands in your pants, be my little freak…” As the excerpted lyrics and title suggest, Usher brings ample freakiness to the table.  This, of course, qualifies “Lil Freak” as the perfect song for After Dark 🕛 🌃, certainly more than a later Usher song, 🎵 “Climax”, which is more focused on a dying relationship than the ‘relations,’ ha-ha.

“By the way, you got right on that

With the chick you wanted

And now you in the corner, kissing on a girl

I’m about to have a ménage with these here ladies

Look at those freaks at the bar, yeah, they looking for a star.”

Oh, so F-R-E-A-K-Y Usher, and we wouldn’t have it any other way! His vocals are incredibly sexy (it should go without saying). Additionally, he serves up sweet ad-libs. The centerpiece of the record is the chorus, of course, which is infectious and totally titillating.

“If you’re coming with me, really coming with me

You go get some girls and bring them to me

If you’re coming with me, really coming with me

You let her put her hands in your pants, be my little freak

Be my little freak, be my little freak.”

Worth noting, “Lil Freak” brilliantly samples the 🎙 Stevie Wonder classic, 🎵 “Living for the City”. Additionally, we get awesome production work courtesy of 🎛 Elvis ‘Blac Elvis’ Williams and 🎛 Polow Da Don.

Final Thoughts 💭 

What more is there to say honestly? Everybody could use some freakiness, right? Usher and Nicki Minaj serve up a heaping dose of it on 🎵 “Lil Freak” that we are still talking about more than a decade later!

Appears in 🔻:

• 13 Hella Freaky Freak Songs

🎙 Usher • 💿 Raymond v Raymond • 🏷 LaFace • 📅 2010

Usher, “Lil Freak”: After Dark 🕛 🌃 No. 38 (2022) [📷: Brent Faulkner, cottonbro, Darkmoon_Art, JJ Whitley, Ketut Subiyanto, KoolShooters, Luan Queiros, The Musical Hype, Pexels, Pixabay, Tazz Vaughn]