Ne-Yo getting Closer to singing with Stevie Wonder
NE-YO has revealed a dream duet with his idol Stevie Wonder has been signed, sealed… but not yet delivered.
The Closer singer has been ‘in conversation’ with Wonder about making a record together.
‘We’ve been talking about getting into the studio,’ Ne-Yo told Guilty Pleasures. ‘Scheduling has been a thing that hasn’t permitted it, so far. While he’s going left, I’m going right. Lord, we’re going to get it soon.’
The US chart-topper — real name Shaffer Chimere Smith — credits Wonder, 68, for him launching a music career in the first place. ‘He is literally one of the people responsible for there even being a Ne-Yo,’ he said.
‘I hated my singing growing up because I didn’t sound like the people my mum used to listen to. [Then] my mum introduced me to Michael Jackson and Stevie.
‘I had to tell (Wonder) that story when I first met him, I had to let him know.’
The Let Me Love You singer is expecting his second child with wife Crystal Renay. But the R&B star, 38, almost made a meal out of his first date with his missus. ‘I wanted us both to lay out all of our dirty laundry, right then and there.
‘I let her know everything that there was to know to prepare for her to splash a drink in my face and walk away from the table. When it didn’t happen, that’s when I knew that she was special.
‘That resulted in two years of happy marriage so far,’ he grinned.
The couple are already parents to two-year-old son Shaffer Chimere Smith Jr. Ne-Yo also has son, Mason, six, and daughter Madilyn, seven, with ex-fiancée Monyetta Shaw.
His new album, Good Man, is out on June 8.
Author: Tom Stichbury
