Synopsis

Usher arrives in Paris for a romantic rendezvous with Kimora Lee Simmons, moving from a hotel-room phone call to sightseeing, flirtation, and sensual performances beneath the Eiffel Tower. The mood changes when armed men ambush their convertible, kidnap Simmons, and leave Usher beaten and desperate for help. After the police prove useless, he tracks down the gang, stages an explosive rescue, and escapes with Simmons on a motorcycle. The video closes on a playful computer-screen gag that repeats the song's title.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed in Paris in February 1998, giving the song an unusually cinematic European setting for a late-1990s R&B single.

• Kimora Lee Simmons appears as Usher's love interest. At the time, she was best known as a fashion model and had not yet become widely associated with Baby Phat.

• The production deliberately escalates from a polished romantic fantasy into an action movie parody, complete with a kidnapping, a motorcycle escape, an eyepatch, a hand-to-hand fight, and a briefcase that explodes.

• "Nice & Slow" became Usher's first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, helping establish him as a major star during the My Way era.

• Jermaine Dupri later described the record's combination of guitar, programmed percussion, and rap-influenced vocal phrasing as an early version of the sound that would become common in later melodic hip-hop.

• The Eiffel Tower appears with a countdown display connected to the approach of the year 2000, adding a period-specific detail that is easy to miss in the Paris footage.