Last summer, a video of Usher serenading actor Keke Palmer onstage at his Las Vegas residency made the rounds online. In the clip, Usher slow-dances with the star like she’s the only person in the room, while crooning his falsetto-laden 2010 ballad “There Goes My Baby.” It was all enough to leave Palmer star-struck and giddy. That song, the dance, Usher’s undivided attention were the stuff of a romantic fantasy the R&B star has been cultivating for three decades—seductive but respectful, flirtatious, and wholly charming. Palmer’s unfettered joy was so tangible, so infectious, that I could feel myself blushing, falling under the irresistible spell of Usher, even through a screen.

Usher’s magnetism has been well documented over the course of his career. His charisma is so arresting that it inspired a 2007 episode of The Boondocks in which the animated Usher’s mere presence leads to a marital separation. In an iconic cameo as himself in the 2019 fi…