NEW YORK — It's a few hours before Usher is scheduled to appear on "Saturday Night Live," where he'll perform a couple of songs from his new album, "Here I Stand." As he rehearses a comedy skit, his wife, Tameka, decides to play a practical joke.

Returning to his dressing room, the R&B star is confronted by a reporter, who asks if it's true that he and the missus slip a little tequila to their 6-month-old son when the tot gets fussy.

Usher Raymond IV looks befuddled, and there is an awkward silence, interrupted when a woman starts cackling. It's Mrs. Raymond, of course, who suggested the prank question. Kile Glover, 7, one of her three sons from a previous marriage and relationship, is sitting right beside his stepfather but stays mum, happily absorbed with his laptop. Usher Raymond V is also contentedly oblivious, bouncing on his baby nurse's lap.

Welcome to Usher's world — his new world, that is. When he released his last disc, 2004's nearly 10-times-platinum "Confessions," the comforts and challenges of domestic life were not a source of personal or creative inspiration for the Atlanta-based artist. But there have been "a lot of changes" since then, and "Here I Stand," out today, reflects them.

"This album is about that transformation from a guy who was a hustler, a player — a guy who could have any woman he wanted and chose to take advantage of certain situations," he says. The single "Love in This Club" — which has already topped the pop and R&B charts, fueling expectations that "Stand" will be one of the summer's hottest sellers — finds Usher on the prowl for a woman who's up for a good time, however fleeting.

But after a series of songs charting temptation and seduction, courtship and conflict, Usher, 29, wraps with the title track, which he crooned to his spouse at their wedding last summer. "Forever yours, I stand here," he sings. "You're the blessing that I never thought I would get."

A concept album about the rewards of monogamy, from an artist who once told "Rolling Stone" that his hit "You Make Me Wanna" was fueled by a fond memory of juggling three women?

Which perhaps poses the question of whether Usher's newfound sense of responsibility and stability will prove as marketable as industry insiders are predicting.

"Usher is trying to make music with the same intensity he has had in the past, while also being settled," says Vibe music editor Sean Fennessey. "For his last album, which was a masterpiece, he had a lot of strife to draw on. Now he has a wife and newborn child, which doesn't necessarily make for the most striking music. But he usually knows his way around a pop song, and he knows how to make you care about the songs."

Usher says he deliberately structured his new tunes "to make sure that if I don't touch people with the lyrics, at least I touch them with the music. It's not about conforming; I just felt obligated to serve an audience that understands urban music and culture."

Usher's relationship with the former Tameka Foster, 37, his longtime stylist, has been under scrutiny since the couple announced their engagement in March 2007. The wedding was canceled at the last minute, then rescheduled days later as a smaller ceremony, followed by a more lavish affair; neither was attended by Jonetta Patton, Usher's mother and, until recently, his manager. She was replaced last year by veteran manager Benny Medina and his partner, Chris Hicks, adding to speculation that Patton didn't approve of the woman in her son's life.

Usher concedes that his mother initially "made a very hard stance as to where she was with my relationship, and she was not happy with the way some things were being handled." But he insists that the decision to end his mother's management role was a mutual one. "We had differences, and now we don't have those issues anymore."

As a result, he says, first-time grandmother Patton can focus on family matters, and is getting along swimmingly with both her son and her daughter-in-law. Usher V "is a miracle baby because of that. Now you can't get her away from us."

The singer, who has a younger half-brother, aspiring performer and producer James Lackey, points out that his wife and mother both had children with different men. "Some people might look at me now and not understand why I would want to be with someone who has children already. But I come from a situation where that worked."

Granted, the singer's father, Usher III, who died in January, split with Patton, his high-school sweetheart, before their son turned 2. But while Usher grew up without his dad, and was largely estranged from him as a young adult, the two reconciled about two years before his death, at Tameka's urging.

"She always said, 'The past is the past and you must honor thy father and thy mother.' "

So father and son "had the chance to talk, and I learned so much about where I got so many of my qualities from. I'm very glad to have had him in my life before he took ill. He was able to dance at my wedding.

"I forgave him for not being there. But it also gave me inspiration: I know that I'm going to be everything to my child that my father wasn't to me."