A member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Dupri has written and produced classic tracks for the likes of Usher, Mariah Carey, TLC, XSCAPE, Bow Wow, JAY-Z, Kris Kross and countless others.

In a DX Exclusive, Dupri was asked at this year’s Soul Train Awards to name best song he’s ever written, and after a little deliberation the Atlanta native settled on “Nice and Slow” by Usher.

“For one, it was his first No.1 across-the-board record….,” he said, explaining his selection. “That’s the one song that I completely wrote by myself as far as the lyrics go.”

Dupri went on to give some insight into how the classic slow jam was created. “Once it got to a space where me and Usher started doctoring it up, then I brought in Jagged Edge,” he recalled. “So I feel like that was one of the ones that taught me like collaborating, bringing in Jagged Edge to help the song go bigger than what it was.”

He continued: “Me and Usher teaching each other back and forth, I feel like that was the one in my earlier times of writing music that taught me a lot. To see people still singing that song at the top of their lungs, so that’s the one.”

Dupri also reflected on finding out about his first No.1 song, Kris Kross’ “Jump” while out on tour. “I was 19 … We were out promoting it, we might have been coming to an awards show or something like that and somebody told us that it happened.”

Elsewhere, Dupri recently chimed in on the reported cancellation of Chris Brown’s tribute to Michael Jackson at the American Music Awards. In an Instagram post, Dupri argued that nixing Breezy’s performance is a terrible sign for Black music.

“We wanna know why,” Tank wrote. “We need a reason. You hire our brother Chris Brown. You send him through rehearsals. He’s creating one of the most epic performances ever. And then you cancel it. You pull the rug out from under him and all the hard-working people around him. You hired him.”