The Girovago

Back up to speed

Mid-feb for your first post of 2006. Ooh not bad but just as well I didn't add 'blog more often' to my list of new year's resolutions.

2006 got of to a good start. After spending New Years Eve in on a farm in France celebrating with my darling boyfriend and around twenty of his friends I returned to the Big Smoke to receive the joyous news that I'd finally been paid by Rolling Stone Italy (only 6 months after I filed my copy).

In the face of adversity my normal reaction is to feebly protest and then submit, which is pretty much what I've done with Rolling Stone. So first week back of work saw me sending of a round of arse-licking emails to contacts old and new to try and sure up a constant supply of freelance work for the forthcoming year.

Look's like its worked quite well with Rolling Stone. My first gig of the year was Ne-Yo. A baby faced 23 year old who is Def Jam's most hyped signing. Apart from Gwen Stefani I haven't really done many interviews with US musicians and was surprised how media savvy he was, despite being a relative newcomer. His words were just so quote perfect that tI actually found it quite hard to pull anything of interest out of the interview. It was all just a bit too polished. Take a look at the piece below and let me know what you think.

(On Friday I have 40 mins with the Flaming Lips, which I'm sure will be a very different kettle of fish.)

LAS VEGAS - the city whose neon lights shimmer in the desert haze of Nevada like a modern day El Dorado. Home to casinos and brothels it’s not called Sin City for nothing. So you’d imagine it would be the ultimate playground for a kid – just think what sorts of mischief you could get up to in America’s own den of iniquity. Yet Ne-Yo, Def Jam’s most recent signing who is fast becoming R&B’s next big thing remains surprisingly tight-lipped on allusions of a misspent youth. “Las Vegas is very much an adult town. It’s not as exciting as you would think. If you’re not 21 then there’s not really a whole lot to do. It’s pretty much the same as growing up anywhere else,” he swears. Yeah right!

Still, it looks as if some of Sin City’s glitter dust has definitely rubbed of on this 23 year-old. He’s in London to perform a showcase of material from his new album. In My Own Words blends pop melodies with rich, soulful productions. The location for the performance is an underground Art Deco club minutes away from buzz of Piccadilly Circus but it has the feel of a prohibition style speak easy or a low-budget P’Diddy video.

On stage NeYo, who looks like a younger, sweeter version of 50 cent smoothly wraps his vocal chords around five tracks including the ridiculously catchy ballad ‘So Sick’. Considering it’s his first performance outside of the US he works the stage with remarkable ease and establishes a witty repartee with the crowd. He’s brought a little memento from Vegas with him: two dancers who look like they’ve stepped straight out of a hip-hop video bump and grind their way around the stage which can’t help to placate the guys in the audience who may find his music a bit too sweet.

Nicknamed by producer Deon "Big D" Evans, who compared his musical instincts to the talents of The Matrix character Neo (Keanu Reeves), Ne-Yo wrote last years hit ‘Let me Love You’ for R&B crooner Mario. In the year since he signed to Def Jam has caught the eye of a number of influential figures. Rapper Jay-Z has taken him under his wing and is teaching him the tricks of the trade. Ne Yo is about to help Beyoncee with her new project. Ciara and Christina Milian will also soon be benefiting from the Ne-Yo touch as he goes into the studio to work on their new albums with them. But now he’s looking to step out from the studio and on to the stage. He’s already his feet wet performing several dates with Grammy award winner John Legend this last autumn.

So what’s the music scene like in Vegas? “There’s a lot of very talented people in Las Vegas but thing about Vegas is that is has its own music industry. The big Vegas shows are the height of what an R&B singer can do in the city. When you get booked you can make really good money out of it. If you’re doing it for the money then you can live very comfortably doing that. But if you want more than that then you gotta get out of there,” he says.

Ne-Yo has been a professional songwriter since he was 16 years old. “Right after high school, literally the day after we walked through graduation, my friends and I hopped in a van and headed for California and get a record deal,” he says. After spending more time than they imagined sleeping in the van while they looked for their big break, the boys eventually met the head of a production company who had a boy band who were putting their record together. Ne-Yo and his friends ended up writing four songs on that album. Over the course of time the group split up but Ne-Yo stayed with the company and signed on with them as their staff writer.

His appeal is perhaps a reflection of his unorthodox musical influences. NeYo spent his formative years in the backwaters of America’s Deep South before moving to Las Vegas. There aren’t many R&B musicians who will admit a love for country and western music. “I love country because of the things that they write about. Music today is all about making yourself looking as good as possible. That’s good but life isn’t always shiny and pretty and country music reflects that. I wanna be the artist that can write songs that someone can relate to and make people say ‘yeah, I feel that too’. I don’t want to be flossy, shiny guy all the time.”

“Growing up in Arkansaw I was always surrounded by gospel music and deep soul. Y’know like Donny Hathaway, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye that type of stuff. Then I got to Vegas and it was all flamingo feathers and bright lights and the sound there is all about Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr and Tom Jones. Basically I took the best of both of these two worlds, slammed them together and…here I am,” he says.

Despite a deep-seated love and appreciation of music Ne-Yo didn’t always plan on being a singer. “Everyone in my house was singing from the oldest to the youngest so it wasn’t like a special thing, it was as common as salt,” he remembers. “It wasn’t until I got outside, to the 11th grade of high school that I began to take singing seriously,” he says.

So does this young pretender to the R&B throne have any fears and doubts about moving from being a song writer to becoming a performer? “My attitude is just do what you do,” he says. “If it works then it was supposed to work if it doesn’t then it was never supposed to work anyway so you can’t feel bad about it. I’m taking everything in my stride. The moment I get excited about something then that’s when things will go wrong because I’m cursed. I keep calm, say thank you very much and stay humble because that’s the number one rule in this game.”

posted by Bella Figura @ 11:52 am