Usher & His Sons Kick Off Instagram’s Carversations Series

“It’s seven o’clock on the dot,” and Usher’s cruising into a much-needed Carversation with his sons.

Instagram has launched Carversations, a new video series designed to help parents and teens tackle tough convos about social media, safety, and screen time, all from the place where families often speak most freely: the car. The series premiered with an appropriately ATL-rooted headliner, Usher, who pulls up with his teen sons, Cinco, 18, and Naviyd, 16, for a candid cruise through the complexities of growing up online.

“This is Meta’s way of helping make conversations about technology a little more fluid,” said Kristin Hendrix, Meta’s VP of Strategic Partnerships for Trust & Safety, to BOSSIP at the Atlanta launch. “These conversations aren’t easy, but there’s something about being in a car — looking forward, moving together — that makes it easier to talk about screens, boundaries, and growing up.”

The choice of Usher was no coincidence. As Hendrix put it, the R&B icon is a rare “generational unifier,” equally familiar to teens discovering him through Reels and parents who came of age during Confessions and 8701.

“Young folks know him. People from my generation know him,” she said. “And he’s parenting teens himself. That relatability matters.”

In the debut episode, Usher trades the stage for the steering wheel, opening up about how Instagram’s Teen Accounts feature helps him protect his sons online.

Launched in September 2024 and updated this fall, Teen Accounts automatically place teens into age-appropriate settings, including private profiles and content restrictions.

“I don’t want my kid to see something I didn’t choose to allow them to see,” Usher says in the episode. “It gives us peace of mind.”

When asked what else parents should know about social media, Kristin Hendrix further highlighted Instagram’s suite of teen-focused safety features.

“We have a feature called Teen Settings, like private by default, which we launched in September 2024,” she said, adding that an October update further refined Teen Accounts to focus on age-appropriate content.

“In addition to Teen Accounts, we’ve offered features under this parent supervision umbrella for a few years now, where parents can link their accounts to their teens to see, for example, how much time they’re spending online and what they’re looking at,” Hendrix explained, emphasizing that these tools are designed to foster informed, open conversations between parents and teens. I think having those conversations about safety and boundaries is integral. Really important.”

The conversation flows and is filled with equal parts fatherly guidance and playful pushback as Usher and his sons debate screen time limits, DMs, and who really runs Instagram the hardest in the Raymond household. Cinco and Naviyd tease their dad about the Reels he sends, while Usher reminds them that he can see their usage stats, thanks to parental supervision tools.

The episode also turns reflective when the singer contrasts his own come-up with his sons’ digital-first reality. While Usher once had to sing outside nightclubs hoping to be discovered, today’s teens can DM producers, post music, and build community with a tap.

“Y’all got Instagram,” Usher says with a laugh. “You don’t need to go to a record company to ask for approval to be an artist.”

He expanded on that point while enjoying some father-son banter at the Atlanta Carversations launch, during a Kenny Burns-hosted conversation.

That blend of humor, honesty, and hindsight is exactly what Carversations aims to spotlight.

Each episode will feature a well-known parent and their teen (or teens) sharing unfiltered reflections on creativity, connection, and the challenges of navigating an always-online world — without forced eye contact or formal sit-downs.

“Parenting is hands down the hardest job in the world,” Kristin Hendrix said to BOSSIP. “We hope families take comfort in knowing they’re not alone. It’s hard for everybody.”

Speaking of difficulty, Usher opened up with a personal parenting anecdote about wisdom he’s shared with his sons.

“One of the harder conversations I’ve had with my kids is about appealing to others and how they don’t define you. Who you are is defined by your decisions, your commitment,” said the dad who encourages his boys to find something they’re “obsessed with” that they can do to the best of their ability.

At another point in the discussion, he recalled a conversation about death he had with his boys after the tragic passing of their brother, Kile Glover, at 11 years old in a boating accident.

The Grammy-winner used the moment to praise his late stepson as an “Alpha kid” whose presence influenced his brothers.

“Now you think about how precious life is, I think we celebrate more and more as we celebrate him. I know that he [Nayvid] is the artist that he is because of Kile,” said Usher. “Kile was active, man. He was online filming himself—we were trying to slow him down, but it was so good. Now that he’s gone, when I see him singing [Nayvid] and see him [Cinco] being an artist, those seeds were planted through Kile. Kids are forced to live within the shadow of their parents, but to know that their sibling is the reason why they do some of the things they do—I would go back to that time and just celebrate him. I loved him,” he added.

Carversations streams on Instagram’s flagship @instagram account and Instagram’s YouTube channel, with more episodes and familiar faces who are all about teen safety, set to premiere soon.