![]() "That was a direct jab at people who complain about the shape of the world but didn't go to vote," he says. Each is immaculately crafted, benefiting from Smith's ability to imbue his writing with zeitgeist-chiming resonances.Ī supporter of Barack Obama, he agrees that a line in What's the Matter - "We keep complaining, but we won't change/ So everything remains the same" - is a nod to the Democratic presidential nominee's "audacity of hope" platform. The first single, Closer - a UK No 1 that's been bouncing around the charts for months and remains in the top 10 - was inspired by a night spent in a London club Stop This World, a sweeping piano ballad, hisses with pent-up restraint What's the Matter is a caustic commentary on relationships between stars and fans. He began incorporating elements of sounds he was digging from European dancefloors on last year's follow-up, while his forthcoming third album, Year of the Gentleman, echoes his Vegas roots in its admiring embrace of Rat Pack cool. I'm gonna try to throw a little comedy in there, give you a little drama: I'd do a magic trick if I knew how, but I don't."ĭubbed Ne-Yo after the Matrix character by a friend because of his seeming ability to "see" music, Smith's breakthrough came when So Sick, a song from his debut album, topped the charts in the US and UK in 2006. Capturing the essence of all that automatically sets you apart. "The cool thing about a Vegas show is it's not just singin', it's not just dancin', it's not just drama, it's all o' that. "Oh, I've seen pretty much all of the shows," Smith smiles (he even starred in one for a while as a teenager). You'd imagine one of Ne-Yo's heroes, Sammy Davis Jr, would approve: all it needs is a few acrobats and it could be his own Vegas show. ![]() ![]() "If you're not an adult, what is there? Now they're tryin' to make it more family-friendly, but for us growing up it was a little dull."īack in the city to play a gig supporting Alicia Keys, flanked by a suited band and female dancers in leotards, he bounds, struts and costume-changes his way through a set that's sequenced as a narrative. "It's a city that's geared towards adults," he says. When his parents split up, Smith and his sister would "ping-pong back an' forth between the two" until, around the time he was nine, the kids ended up with their mother, who took on anything up to three jobs at a time in the Strip's casino-hotels to support them. Smith grew up in Las Vegas after his Nevada-native truck-driver father brought his Arkansas-born wife and young family there. Ne-Yo is the performer, Shaffer is the songwriter and I think what keeps me grounded in reality is that there's still Shaffer." "Well, they are night an' day, because the guy on stage is Ne-Yo, and the guy sittin' in front o' you right now is Shaffer. "I've had people say, 'The guy you are on stage and the guy you are sittin' in front of me, they're like night an' day'," he says. The struggle to bridge that gap has helped define him. But the demands of his working life mean he often has to return to a city he remains ambivalent about, where he learned the performance skills that have turned him into a star, but didn't get enough warnings of how 21st-century celebrity culture demands more from its idols than he is prepared to give. Smith's attempts to get out of Vegas included forming a boy band with friends from his performing arts school, and driving the five hours each way to Los Angeles to sing on record labels' doorsteps in fruitless attempts to get a deal. But I wanted something bigger than Vegas - I did pretty much everything that you can do in Vegas to try to get outta here." In Las Vegas, Danny Gans walks down the street and he's mobbed, but the world has no idea who Danny Gans is. The height of your career here is to become a staple of one of the shows. ![]() Half an hour earlier, perched on a balcony on the 34th floor of a hotel overlooking the southern end of the strip, it is difficult to disagree when he says: "Vegas is kind of its own world. "You can live like a king here, and the rest of the world never has to know your name," Ne-Yo, born Shaffer Smith, says. Admittedly, as he drives along South Las Vegas Boulevard in a convertible Bentley with a documentary film crew, he is perhaps encouraging more than a second glance, but the attention the 29-year-old attracts attests to his growing star power. But for the R&B singer and songwriter Ne-Yo, who grew up in the city, the cliché has the ring of truth. O n the Las Vegas Strip, everybody is a star: or so the hype would have it. ![]()
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