R&B star Usher and his mother are working together once again.
“Usher has dissolved his management arrangement with Benny Medina and has re-engaged Jonnetta Patton as his manager,” the mother and son said in a statement Wednesday.
According to a source, “He wanted her to come back on board and she decided to. He had really poor management and wanted her back.” The source cited lackluster album sales as one of the reasons Usher decided to reconsider his management.
In his own statement, Medina told People Wednesday, “With an artist like Usher, the bar is set really high. Whether it was management, marketing or the music, we achieved a number one single and a number one album. It is a completely new day and time in music now. In four years, his audience, demographic, and musical direction has changed. Records like Lil Wayne’s ‘Lollipop’ are the type of phenomena that ‘Yeah’ was in 2004. I had a great time and we parted ways amicably.”
Usher’s publicist, Patti Webster, also resigned on Aug. 1.
Usher and his mother, who previously managed her son’s career, parted ways professionally in May 2007, around the time the R&B singer got engaged to Tameka Foster. The couple postponed their wedding, partly due to family matters, including Foster’s tense relationship with Patton, sources said at the time. Usher and Foster later wed in a quiet civil ceremony on Aug 3, 2007, then had their dream wedding later that month, which his mother did not attend.
In an interview with Vibe earlier this year, Usher would not characterize the split from his mom as a firing. Instead, he said he paid her “the ultimate compliment” by having her retire.
