Musician

I've spoken before on how the art of storytelling has been lost a bit. I definitely feel 'Empire' is helping to reprogram us back to that place where we pay attention and invest emotionally in the records and the artists.

Beyonce's the kind of artist where you're not gonna see it till it's right.

Who directed the video 'No More Drama' for Mary J. Blige. I was actually kickin' with J. Lo talking about some music that we're gonna put together, and we were talking about great directors. She said she really, really liked that video and was wondering who directed it, so yeah, I looked it up!

I write because I actually enjoy writing. It's a plus and a fringe benefit that, you know, I can actually provide for my family and, you know, a few people know my name - that's great.

'Let Me Love You' is about being brave enough to let a person get close enough to you to teach you how to love yourself, to teach you the importance of loving yourself.

Prince is the ultimate performer. Prince is that dude that's going to get on stage by himself, if he need to, but hold you in the palm of his hand. Like, you can't take your eyes off the man when he's on stage, and he could just be sitting there playing his guitar.

I pride myself on being the type of artist who can work half in the R&B world and half in the pop world.

I'm good but not great at 'Madden'. I have friends that their whole life is based around this video game.

For me to be here at album number six, it's kind of a way to say, 'Thank you for allowing me to be here... to still be around.'

I've never done this from a standpoint of, 'I want to be famous.' I sing because I love singing. I perform because I love performing.

I recall my mum tried to teach me how to fry chicken once, and I almost burned down half the kitchen... I don't think I have the patience for cooking.

I'm a rather multifaceted person - or at least I like to fashion myself as such - so my dreams are multifaceted. For example, I had a dream of winning a Grammy, right? I've done that three times over.

I don't want to call myself a perfectionist, because perfection is imperfection.

Every song I've ever written has been based in reality, based in fact, things that happen to me.

When you're dressing on a budget, simplicity is key.

Auto-tune is good to keep your notes intact, but it doesn't do much for the feel of your voice.

For starters, I wanted to do an acting role in a movie that had nothing to do with the music business or in which I would play a singer or a songwriter. When I act, I don't even want to be thought of as Ne-Yo.

I'm trying to escape the shackles of a pen and a pad. I've sat in sessions with Jay-Z where he doesn't write anything down. He'll come up with the most incredible triple entendre, all in his head - it's amazing.

All my musical influences came from my mom, who did everything to music. She played it 24 hours a day, seven days a week in our house. So that's where my love for music came from.

I've always been the person to look at any turmoil as temporary. I recall times where my mom was working five and six jobs, and there's still no food in the house.