“So Sick” has been a top 10 song on Billboard for about three months, and though it’s technically his first, Ne-Yo is no stranger to a hit single. His album, “In My Own Words,” will debut at number one this week, but again, Ne-Yo has already seen his work reach similar achievements.
Ne-Yo has met this type of success before. The difference is that people had yet to meet Ne-Yo. That’s because Ne-Yo reached this success as a songwriter, not yet as a singer. But that has all changed now that Ne-Yo is behind the mic.
Ne-Yo, born Shaffer C. Smith, has written songs for Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, B2K, Musiq, and most notably Mario. He co-wrote Mario’s “Let Me Love You,” which has become one of the most played R&B songs on radio. Ever.
R&B hasn’t been the most successful genre of music in recent memory, but Ne-Yo hopes that will change with his debut album.
“When hip-hop-R&B stepped onto the scene, it overshadowed traditional R&B. When Crunk & B stepped onto the scene, it overshadowed hip-hop-R&B. It’s time to bring traditional R&B back, which is what my album is,” Ne-Yo tells andPOP, on his way to Los Angeles from New York last week. “It’s rich melodies and harmonies that stick with you and lyrics that actually are talking about something.”
But a failed record deal five years ago resulted in Ne-Yo quitting the music business.
Discouraged when his deal with Columbia Records didn’t work out, Ne-Yo was convinced that there was no spot for him as a singer in the industry.
“I thought that maybe God didn’t want me to be a singer. Maybe I’m not supposed to be singing right now,” Ne-Yo tells andPOP. “I considered quitting it all. I fell into a lightweight depression where I was like, ‘I don?t think music is what I’m supposed to be doing’.”
He had already recorded an album that Columbia kept pushing back on the release calendar until it was eventually permanently shelved. When Ne-Yo and the label split, Columbia gave a song to Marques Houston, meaning Ne-Yo wasn’t even able to shop around his work to other labels.
“I asked to be released early from my contract because it was so bad over there but of course they didn?t want to do that so it was a long drawn out thing,” he says. “They finally said, ‘we’ll let you go but we’re going to keep the album.’ I had written my entire album over there. I was just bent on being free, (so) I said ‘whatever, take it’.”
Ne-Yo, 23, laughs when he thinks about other artists who were dropped by Columbia. 50 Cent and Alicia Keys both had failed deals with the label.
“Their urban division was completely screwed up at the time,” Ne-Yo says. “They would fire their entire staff and hire a whole new staff. Then a month later, fire that entire staff and hire a whole new staff. And a month later do it again, and again and again. My project just got caught up in the mix of them never being able to keep it together. I had like nine A&R people by the end of the whole thing.”
His current manager persuaded Ne-Yo to get back into music, and that’s what Ne-Yo did, to an extent. Ne-Yo decided to focus on writing rather than singing.
Though he doesn’t have a particular approach to penning lyrics, he says practice over the years has helped him become a better writer.
“I used to be that kid that walked around with a journal, writing down everything that happened to me all day long,” he says. “Journal entries lead to poetry; poetry to short stories; from short stories eventually into songs. It just came from writing; not necessarily writing songs, but just writing, getting comfortable putting words together that sound good. The more I did it, the better I got at it.”
But plans for a career only writing songs all changed at a chance meeting with Def Jam.
Ne-Yo accompanied a friend to the Def Jam offices. “The only reason we went up to Def Jam was so a friend of mine could be reunited with an old friend of his who happened to be working at Def Jam at the time. We went to Def Jam not shopping no music, not trying to get no deal, just so they could be reunited.”
By the time he left the building, Ne-Yo had a record deal.
“I took that as God saying, ‘it wasn?t supposed to happen over there. You weren?t ready for it. It’s supposed to happen right now with these people at this time.’ It was an offer I couldn?t refuse.”
Getting signed at Def Jam meant meetings with the label’s president, Sean Carter, AKA Jay-Z.
“The first time I met Jay-Z his first words to me were, ‘why did you give that song away?’” Ne-Yo recalls. Jay-Z was, of course, referring to the Mario song. “Not, ‘hey, welcome to the label. Good working with you.’ It was ‘why did you give that song away?’ My response was, ‘wow, nice to meet you too, sir’.”
Because he “gave that song away,” Ne-Yo wasn’t properly introduced to potential fans until the release of his first single, “Stay,” late last year. He finds aspects of his newfound fame sometimes puzzling.
“It?s a transition that takes getting used to. I’m such a regular guy. For somebody standing in front of me screaming and crying is like, ‘what’s wrong with you? It’s just me!’ I’m slowly but surely learning to love it,” he says.
Besides touring (he may open for Mary J. Blige) and promoting the album, Ne-Yo has a few acting roles coming up. He’ll play a club owner in “Steppin’ Up: Save the Last Dance 2,” and he is putting together the soundtrack. He’ll also have a co-starring role in “Step Dance” with Columbus Short. And he plans to launch a clothing line, “Chimere Urban Couture,” in September, which he describes as “upscale street wear.”
So how did he feel about giving away such a massive hit to Mario? Ne-Yo is cool with it. With confidence usually reserved for music industry veterans, he says he’s capable of writing more and more hits for years to come.
“I’m a walking talking living breathing lyric,” he says. “I could use some of my best lyrics on my album, give some of my best lyrics away, knowing that there’s always more where that came from.”
When Ne-yo and Rihanna collaborate on tracks, the result is usually pretty spectacular.
