If you enjoyed the setlist and storytelling elements in Usher’s performances during the R&B Tour with Chris Brown, musical producer Bobby Ross Avila is one of the people you should thank. In fact, if you thought Usher’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performance in 2024 was top-tier or if “Confessions” is your favorite Usher album, you owe Avila gratitude for those too.
With decades of experience as a Grammy Award-winning producer, songwriter, performer, and multi-instrumentalist, Bobby Ross Avila serves as the musical producer for Usher’s performances on the current stadium tour featuring Usher and Chris Brown. The R&B Tour made its way to Birmingham’s Protective Stadium for two nights of performances, July 28 and 29.
The Birmingham Times spoke with Avila about the tour, his storied career, and his work on the R&B Tour before the Tuesday night show.
Over his decades in the music industry, Avila has collaborated with legendary producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, alongside his brother IZ Avila, and has helped create music for iconic artists such as Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, Anthony Hamilton, Earth, Wind & Fire and many others.
And all that experience is infused into his work on the R&B Tour. In addition to his behind-the-scenes role, Avila performs live each night as a member of Usher’s band, including a featured solo during the show.
But Avila is quick to acknowledge that each show is a team effort.
“I’m one of many things that make it work, just one component,” he told the Birmingham Times. “I work alongside my brother IZ Avila, who’s the other half of the Avila Brothers, and there’s another guy, Jamel. Then you’ve got choreography and security, and it all works together. It’s like a ballet. It’s really a dance with rhythm that we’re doing together to make this visual experience be what it is every night.”
The R&B Tour
The Usher and Chris Brown tour brings together generations of R&B fans, so the shows must speak to a wide range of audiences while also celebrating the music, culture, and legacy of the genre. Avila says the key is to incorporate the audience and include captivating storytelling elements.
“It really invites everybody to the party,” he said.
As a musical producer, Avila, along with the rest of the team, is charged with finding a way to present fan favorites that feels both fresh and familiar.
“It’s like, how do we reinvent ourselves again after 20 years?” he said. “How do we do ‘Bad Girl’ different? How do we do ‘Seduction’ different? But, you know, that’s the fun part about it.”
One of the highlights of working with Usher, Avila said, is witnessing his dedication to his craft.
“He’s such a student,” he said. “One thing that I love about Ush is he loves music, and he knows who came before him. His understanding and appreciation of music is very fulfilling for me and my brother.”
For Avila, working on the R&B Tour also brought an opportunity to collaborate with Chris Brown’s team.
“There’s like so many similarities [between Usher and Chris Brown], but when you see them on stage, you see how extremely different they are,” Avila said, pointing out Brown’s non-stop energy and adding that Brown seems like a “superhero” when he performs.
Meanwhile, he said Usher’s focus is on finesse, and the impact of great artists such as James Brown, Michael Jackson, and Fred Astaire is evident when Usher is on stage.
“I think Ush has this very sophisticated, fresh, and just as explosive way of performing,” he said. “They’re both really sharp and eloquent in their own right.”
Avila grew up playing music with his family and had landed his first record deal by age 12.
“I didn’t find music. Music found me,” he said
When he was 15, Avila started working with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. But being an artist is challenging.
“The music business took me on a journey and goes through the ups and the downs and the rejections,” he said. Along the way, however, he was learning about branding, marketing, promotions, and publicity, which sparked an interest in producing.
“At a certain point in my life, my brother and I decided to partner as a production duo, and that led us to reuniting with Jimmy and Terry in 2001,” he said. The following year, they met Usher and worked on the song “Truth Hurts.”
“And next thing you know, we’re doing six or seven songs on what was going to be called “Confessions,” he said.
And the rest is history — literally. The Avila brothers continued working with Usher over the years and, in 2024, became the first Mexican Americans to produce the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Their work contributed to one of the most-watched and celebrated halftime performances in history and marked a significant cultural and professional milestone for Avila, who expressed great gratitude to Usher.
“I truly love him for his belief in what I do, and his belief in what my brother does, and what we do together,” he said, adding that he feels the Avila Brothers and Usher are as inseparable as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were once with Janet Jackson.
Lucky Fella
After decades of shaping music behind the scenes, Avila is stepping forward as a solo artist again with his latest project, “The Return of the Gentleman.”
“I really believe that the new sexy is just being a gentleman,” he said, “and I’m diving in that bag of Teddy Pendergrass and Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder. That’s really what I was inspired to do.”
One of the singles he’s released from the EP is titled “Lucky Fella,” which he believes is fitting for this time in his life.
“I’m such a lucky fellow right now, to be able to be in my artist shoes and then also be on this tour and be expressive as an artist and as a producer at the same time on a massively big stage,” he said. “I mean, come on! I can’t complain about that!”
Eager to help youth — especially young people of color — who are interested in the music industry, Avila tries to meet with students in any city he travels to. At the time of his interview with the Birmingham Times, he hoped to visit the Alabama School of Fine Arts while in Birmingham.
As Avila continues the R&B Tour and ramps up promotion of his solo project, he stays focused on what he believes his work is all about.
“What I’ve learned from all of the artists I’ve worked with is that one thing that we all agree on is the power of music and how it touches the human spirit,” he said. I think the biggest superstar out of all of it is the music, and the music really guides you. When you work with these different artists, you just see how incredible the gift of music is, and how incredible God is as a giver of the gift.”
Based on reporting by Birmingham Times.
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