Usher has exclusively told MTV.co.uk that protégé Justin Bieber's forthcoming album Believe shows his growth as an artist.
The Climax singer, who released his seventh studio LP Looking For Myself this week, says that JB's record will surprise his fans as he has been heavily involved in the writing process.
Speaking of Bieber's third record, Usher told us: "I think that as he grows, so will his musical experience. I think that his writing is really great and that is the one element that I felt was kind of like the hidden secret, the hidden sauce.
"The fact that he has been significantly involved in who he is as an artist which is what you want. You don’t want just a product of something, somebody find a record for you and it just goes. He literally is writing his own music and that’s cool."
He continued: "You know every time I’m with him, I’m like 'where’s your guitar? Keep that guitar in your hand' so he is actually writing incredible records.
"The textures that he chose to work with were a little bit more kind of classic, classic R&B. There is a record called Catching Feelings that is probably one of my favourites, it's an incredible record."
Usher also discussed his planned collaboration with Amy Winehouse, which unfortunately never happened following the Back To Black singer's death in July 2011, stating he still managed to hit the studio with her long-time producer, Salaam Remi, to work on album track, Sins Of My Father.
He explained: "You know working with Salaam Remi kind of came as a product of wanting to explore and try different things.
"I had been speaking with Amy Winehouse loosely about us working together and of course I knew Salaam Remi would probably be the best producer to do it because I felt like he would understand both of us and he had such success with her.
"I had conversations with my A&R, Mark Pitts about us working together. Shortly after, unfortunately, we lost Amy Winehouse but it was still an opportunity for us to work together. So we got in and we worked on an incredible record called Sins Of My Father."
Following Cheryl Cole's claims that she would love to collaborate with Usher, we asked the OMG hitmaker if he would be keen to hit the studio with Chezza.
He explained: "There has been a conversation for I think the last four years but it has been something that never happened. It seems like a pretty cool idea to everybody but I don’t know. See if it happens naturally."
Usher's new album Looking For Myself is out now.
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