Ne-Yo
Ne-Yo goes back to R&B's roots with Year of the Gentleman

By Joe Walker

The phrase “fall blockbuster” is normally reserved for big budget theatrical films. For singer songwriter Ne-Yo, his third Def Jam album release, Year Of The Gentleman, is as big as any fall movie.

On the album’s black-and-white promotional poster, Ne-Yo resembles Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean, starring in the original Ocean’s 11 film. Ne-Yo looks the part of larger-than-life gentleman, dressed to a dapper tee in a city street setting. He wears Sinatra’s signature undone bowtie dangling from his neck. Ne-Yo is no conman, though.

“I write honest songs, real songs,” he says in a phone interview. “I make traditional R&B the way it used to be, the way Quincy [Jones] produced it for Michael Jackson; the way Babyface wrote it for everybody he wrote for, the way the Rat Pack presented the whole package with class. This album is a homage to them.”
Ne-Yo sites Rat Pack as an influence for Year Of The Gentleman. But in the music video for first single, “Closer,” Ne-Yo more resembles Ian Fleming’s spy character, Agent 007 James Bond. You could more or less view the Melina Matsoukas-directed video, complete with Ne-Yo dressed suavely in a suit, with female co-stars, as a trailer for the album.

The success of the single is no international mystery either. “Closer” shot to the top of the UK singles charts and has landed in the top 20 of the Billboard Top 100 singles chart. Its still warming up because as Ne-Yo admits, “a good song will grow on you.”
Again, Ne-Yo isn’t conning anyone. His 2006 debut single, “So Sick,” entered the charts in the top 20, and steadily grew to the top position. Similar results occurred for his sophomore album’s Grammy-winning leadoff title track, “Because Of You,” which peaked at number two.

Writing “blockbusters” is definitely part of Ne-Yo’s pedigree. Singers Leona Lewis, Rihanna (whose current hit single “Take A Bow” was written by Ne-Yo), Mario, Chris Brown and Beyonce can confirm that.

Ne-Yo (born Shaffer Smith) says he’s “been a writer my whole life.” He began his writing career with personal journal entries, later turning to personalizing fictional tales for his friends in school. He’d include them as characters, then read to them what he created. Three years of his high school education came as a student of Las Vegas Academy for Theater and Performing and Visual Arts. Higher learning happened in the recording industry. In 2007, Ne-Yo launched his own recording imprint, Compound Entertainment.

Executive decisions abound, Ne-Yo’s success was built on his penmanship. He’s currently penning songs for Ciara, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Corbin Blu and Whitney Houston.
“Writing is my first love,” he says. “If I wasn’t singing my own songs I’d still be writing for other people. That’s how I got started. So it feels good that I’ve written hits for so money others; for one, because I love being a writer; and two, it introduced me to the world. That’s the big picture of my career.”

“Big pictures” are also a part of Ne-Yo’s personal life, and he confessing to being “the biggest movie critic ever.”

“I look at a movie and see the holes in the plot,” he says. “The average person will miss it because they see it as just a movie. But I analyze and question everything. How can you jump from this to that without explaining what happened in the middle?”

This type of behavior tends to leave Ne-Yo visiting movie theaters alone.