A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

ODD NYT RECURRING THEME OF THE WEEKEND: Ben Vereen, through his daughter Karon, as mentor to the hip-hop generation. According to a pair of articles this weekend, the legendary song-and-dance-and-Webster's-Uncle-Phillip performer is the one who has guided Usher to Broadway and helped Outkast learn their history for Idlewild.

Still, my favorite note in the two articles was Usher's anti-anecdote about what led him to want to play Chicago's Billy Flynn on Broadway:

So what’s Usher’s experience with Broadway?

It came into his orbit, he said, when he was about 15 and had arrived in New York to work on his first album. “After seeing ‘Cats’ on Broadway — well, I never went to see it — but after seeing the advertising for it, I always kind of had an open eye,” he said. “And then when I found out about Fosse, I was like, man, this is it.”

Take that and rewind it back for a minute. Heh.