NEW YORK – As he sits in the back of an SUV ferrying him from one recording studio to the next, Ne-Yo reflects on the current state of R&B – and determines that the genre is suffering from serious malaise.
“People just forgot what it was supposed to be, what it was supposed to feel like, the essence of what it is,” he said forcefully. “It’s a vibe, it’s a feeling – it’s supposed to make you feel something, as opposed to, ‘Let me go eeh-eeh-eeh-eeh-eeh and put a beat behind it and see if people will dance to it.’ Come on, man. There’s more to it than that.”
Given that the singer is just 26 and has only two albums to his credit, his pronouncements about what R&B should be may come across as a bit presumptuous.
But when you consider that his first album, “In My Own Words,” became a platinum success with huge hits such as “So Sick,” and that he’s written or co-written two of the bigger hits of last year, Rihanna’s “Unfaithful” and Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” – you realize that not only is Ne-Yo qualified to make such a diagnosis, but that he may be the one who can provide the cure.
“He has a lot to say, he has so much to say,” Island Def Jam chairman Antonio “L.A.” Reid said. “He’s grown musically, he’s grown as a performer, he’s grown into his image as a star.”
And he has an increasing number of outlets in which to express his artistry. His sexy sophomore album, “Because of You,” came out as the No. 1 album when it debuted in early May.
Ne-Yo performs an all-ages show Sunday in Seattle.
Meanwhile, on the songwriting front, he’s working with Usher, Jennifer Hudson, Whitney Houston, Britney Spears and Celine Dion, who, according to Ne-Yo (born Shaffer Smith), told him: “I am going to be the one person this year that is not going to ask for you for ‘Irreplaceable.’”
Surely, Dion couldn’t be blamed if she did. The ultimate brush-off song, “Irreplaceable” cemented itself at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 100 singles chart for 10 weeks. While Ne-Yo credits Beyonce for the song’s vocal arrangement and helping with the song’s melody, he penned the clever words, including what has now become a catch phrase: “To the left, to the left.”
“Anybody that wasn’t paying attention to Shaffer the Songwriter definitely started after they found out I wrote that song,” Ne-Yo said.
But the main reason why Shaffer the Songwriter was being obscured is because he was being upstaged by Shaffer the Artist. With the release of his debut album last year, Ne-Yo became a bright new face on the pop scene: the ballad “So Sick” was a big hit, and it was followed by successful singles like “Sexy Love.”
His success in music has even led to other opportunities: This year, he had a supporting role in the hit dance flick “Stomp the Yard,” and he is reading other scripts.
“I’ve been blessed …” Ne-Yo said. “I’ve never wanted to do anything else but sing and music, music, music, music.”
But just a few years ago, his experience with the industry left him so shaken he considered giving it up entirely. While Ne-Yo is now signed to Def Jam, he got his first break at Columbia Records, and had finished his debut album for the label when he started butting heads with execs over the direction of it: “… So they ended up shelving me for two years.”
To get off the label, he ended up giving them the record and the songs he had recorded during his tenure there. He was confused about what his future would be.
Then one day, he turned on the radio and heard a song he had written for his Columbia debut – being sung by Marques Houston.
“It kind of added insult to injury … I’m not good enough as myself but he’s good enough to sing a song that’s definitely not him?” he recalled. “I was listening to it like, ‘Aw, see, he didn’t even hit that note like I did!’”
But the frustration over hearing Houston sing his music eased as others started looking for the songwriter behind the song. Soon, he was writing for others.
Still, the desire to be a singer was still there – and it revealed itself after a chance meeting with then-Def Jam executive Tina Davis, now manager to another platinum R&B singer, teen sensation Chris Brown. After listening to one of Ne-Yo’s songs, she told him to perform on the spot – and he did. A half-hour later, he was in front of Reid, with a record deal to follow.
Despite the huge success he has enjoyed since his record debut, Ne-Yo insists the songwriter in him will always be paramount: “If I just had to choose one, I’d probably choose songwriting.”
Of course, now he doesn’t have to. In fact, his biggest problem these days is trying to divide his time between his own career and writing for others.
Ne-Yo performs Sunday in Seattle.
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