Ne-Yo is going back to what put him on the map.
In an interview with Billboard, the singer/songwriter reveals that his next album will be catering once more to his R&B lovers.
“As of right this second my main focus is my new album,” he said. “It’ll be out probably towards the summertime, predominately R&B this time. I had a little stint with the dance music and all of that, which I had a good time with– and I love the audience, I love them for accepting me doing it –but I had to go home on this one. Had to take it back to my roots, and not to say that there won’t be one, maybe two songs on there that the dance crowd can get into, but the majority, the girth of the album, will be R&B.”
On Valentine’s Day, the “Let Me Love You” singer gave us a sensual taste of what we can expect from his new R&B body of work when he dropped a mix tape 3 Simple Rules.
He also admitted that the R&B itch has been there for a while. “ I actually been wanting to go back to my R&B roots for two albums now but [I didn’t], just from the standpoint of being a pioneer, leading people into whatever the next thing was gonna be,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of R&B cats doing songs at 120 beats per minute before ‘Closer,’ which I take full credit and responsibility for. That’s all good, but it was an experiment. You experiment with something, if it goes good, cool, but you never forget where you come from and R&B is where I come from.”
His sixth studio effort is due this summer.