A representative for Usher confirmed to MTV News on Wednesday that the singer and his wife, Tameka Foster, are expecting a baby boy.
"I just want my son to fully be coherent and to be healthy, first and foremost," Usher told People magazine on Tuesday. "I've found that it is a step-by-step process. You can wish for a million and one things. But I hope that my son has the same energy I had as a child. Hopefully, he won't be as bad as me. I hope that he's just a healthy son."
On "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" last month, the singer said that if the baby is male, he'd like to name him Usher. "If it's a boy, I'm going to name him Usher," he said. "I'm hoping to name him that. I've been playing with a few names. I'm the fourth: Usher Raymond IV. I just want to pass the name on. Maybe I'll change the middle name."
What he's less certain about is the name of his forthcoming album, which he told MTV News on Friday is nearly finished - and he promised that fans won't have to wait too much longer for its release.
"I'm working on my album," he said via phone from Atlanta. "It'll be out, I'm not sure when.
"I'm not doing the Dr. Dre to y'all. I'm not doing the Detox," he added, jokingly referring to Dr. Dre's all-too-long-awaited next album. "I'm on my way. I'm actually just about finished. I've been working on it all this year amongst all the other things I've been doing. It's been a somewhat tumultuous year for me. But you go through something to get to something. I'm a married man with a baby on the way, you gotta love that. That's the next major step. A lot of what I plan to offer with this album is kinda standing in this spot. ... The king's back. I ain't gonna say 'back,' I never left."
A few of the people Usher has worked with on the album include Jermaine Dupri and the production team of Dre & Vidal.