STOMP THE YARD
An Interview with NEYO
By Wilson Morales

January 11, 2007

Is there a chance that you and Chris will collaborate on something?

Ne-Yo: Absolutely, absolutely.

Was it because you guys were working on this that you got closer?

Ne-Yo: No, Me and Chris have been friends from before his album came out, before my album came out. We have one mutual friend, Tina Davis, who was his manager. Tina Davis, at the time when I got signed to Def Jam, she was the NR person that actually took me into L.A. Reid’s office so she’s partially responsible for me being at Def Jam. And then shortly after that she left Def Jam to start managing Chris full time so we met through her and you know it’s just that instant click (snaps fingers) and we’ve been friends ever since.

How ironic is it that Mario has a film out as well?

Ne-Yo: I don’t know anything about that. It looks good though from the preview. It looks like it might be pretty good, you know. That’s another good friend of mine. I wish him all the best. He got another album coming out real soon. I got a couple tracks on there as well. Yeah, that dude is coming worth something.

How long were you a struggling artist when you moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles? Did it happen overnight?

Ne-Yo: No, no, no, it definitely was not an overnight situation. I mean honestly it wasn’t too, too long just because we were in talks with different people before we left Vegas. I left Vegas with a group of friends. We were a singing group and we moved out to Vegas, I mean out to California, without any money at all but a lot of hope and a lot of stars in our eyes. ‘We’re gonna go and we’re gonna to sit in front of the Capitol Records building and we’re gonna just sing until the President comes out and gives us a deal.’ That was literally our plan. We sat down at Denny’s and wrote that out. That was what we were gonna do. And we did, we really did that and we got security to escort us off the area. Shortly after that, the group just through having to get different odd jobs and everything we just disbanded and I went on and kept trying to do it myself and caught a break.

So is there one piece of advice you’d give to people who’d like to emulate you?

Ne-Yo: One piece of advice I’d give to anybody trying to emulate me is do not get used to sleeping because I don’t. I don’t. Really, I don’t. If I’m not doing something regarding me and my artistry then I’m writing for somebody else and if I’m not writing for somebody else, now I’m reading scripts. If I’m not reading scripts, I’m playing with my son. If I’m not playing with my son, I’m doing something regarding me being an artist. So it’s a vicious circle and within that circle, there’s not a lot of hours of sleep.

How old is your son?

Ne-Yo: He is sixteen months and he is the most beautiful little boy on the face of the planet.

You’re not getting much sleep if he’s sixteen months old.

Ne-Yo: No, you should see my hotel room. He was here last night and I don’t know how he flipped the couch over but…

At sixteen months?

Ne-Yo: Yeah, I’m exaggerating but basically saying that the room looked like a tornado hit it.

What’s his name?

Ne-Yo: Chimere. Yeah, he’s a little ball of energy. He does not sleep. It was cool for the first five, six hours but you know when 6AM rolled around, I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ He’s not going to lay down, right? Goodness, gracious. But I love him to death. I love him to death.

And how do you spell Chimere?

Ne-Yo: C-H-I-M-E-R-E. Where that name came from, there was a bottle of French perfume that my mom used to love. It’s not even pronounced Chimere. I don’t know how to pronounce it. My uncles used to tease me all the time. They would take the bottle and say, ‘Ooooh, you’re perfume, you’re perfume’ because that’s my middle name and everybody in my family calls me Chimere because Schaffer was my father’s name and they don’t like my father.

Chris said he wants to put the step into some of his shows. Is that something that you might do?

Ne-Yo: Oh, yeah, I already have. You really didn’t get to see too much of it in the film but I learned how to use the cane like the Kappas do so there’s a whole segment of my show that I dedicated solely to that work so you know I’m doing the thing with the cane and all that stuff.

So you still know all the routines from the film then?

Ne-Yo: Some of them, yeah. They’ve been branded on my brain. That was hell putting that stuff together. It really, really was. Just because it was so alien. Like how the hell did they do that? But yeah, you know, I still got it up there. I have nightmares about it.

What is something that you want to do next?

Ne-Yo: As far as filmwise?

Just anything for you. What’s the next step?

Ne-Yo: Well like I said, I’m putting the finishing touches on my second album right now. That’s really my main focus other than the promotion of this movie right now. So writing for a whole bunch of people; to name a few, Britney Spears, just did some stuff for her in New York; Whitney Houston is coming back, strong, strong, strong, strong, strong, strong; oh yeah, she’s coming back; Celine Dion is another one I’m about to go in with really, really soon. Hey man, I’m trying to start 2007 off with a bang.

Were you in the studio with Whitney?

Ne-Yo: No, not at all. I haven’t had a chance to do that yet but I’ve talked to Clive (Davis) once or twice about the project and he’s letting me hear some of the things that she’s gonna do.

What’s the theme of it?

Ne-Yo: It’s still very much on the drawing board so there’s not a whole lot of a theme. Like I haven’t even started writing for her yet because with everything that’s going on from her last album to now is a lot of stuff to talk about, maybe some stuff she don’t want to talk about; so I don’t even want to put pen to pad before I sit down with her and go, ‘Okay, What do you not want me to talk about?’ Because I’m gonna to go there with anything else.

How did Celine Dion come up?

Ne-Yo: That was a shock to me. My publisher is good friends with somebody in her camp. She’s about to finish up the show that she has in Vegas right now and you know they said they were talking about her putting another album together so they were going down the list of people she normally works with and my publisher threw my name in the mix and she said, ‘Oh!, him. I want that guy.’

So Celine Dion handpicked you?

Ne-Yo: Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit like when you sit in the room with Celine or Britney, what’s your process in terms of getting information out of them and how does it influence your songs?

Ne-Yo: Pretty much the same way that this is going on. You ask questions and you get the answers. I haven’t got the opportunity to meet Celine yet. I haven’t started working on that project yet but they reached out and said that she definitely wants me to be a major part of her project. As far as Britney, her whole thing was she’s tired of talking about Kevin, tired of comeback songs. She said she has a CD disk changer of 12 CD’s full of Britney’s back songs and she was like, ‘Can I just make a song? Does it have to be my triumphant return every time?’ And you know, I was like, ‘I see your point.’ So I didn’t give her one of those. She’s like, ‘I just want hit records. That’s all.’ So I said, ‘Look, alright.’

Did Columbus give you any advice about working with her because I know he choreographed her during her last tour?

Ne-Yo: Nah, he didn’t really give me any advice as far as working with her. She’s a lot stronger than people would think and she’s not as – I mean I hate to put it this way – but she’s not as dumb as people think she is. She’s really not, you know. Her whole thing is like, ‘I’m human. I’ve made a bunch of mistakes. Okay, I see that, but goodness gracious, must I be crucified for jaywalking?’ is basically how she looks at it. It’s like ‘They hung me on a cross because I crossed the street. C’mon. What’s going on?’ And it’s true, you know, she’s one of those people where the slightest little thing and it’s like, "Oh my god, Britney’s a crack addict. Wow!’

Well, out in public without her drawers on and showing it is more than a little….

Ne-Yo: I don’t know if that was purposely done but I mean, you know. don’t know. I’m not gonna sit here and make no excuses for Britney.

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STOMP THE YARD opens on January 12, 2007