R&B artist, Ne-Yo, will soon release his first country music project.
He’s one of many artists that have decided to try their hand at the country genre in recent years. Post Malone came over from pop and hip-hop and was welcomed with open arms when he released F-1 Trillion in 2024. And one could say that Beyoncé paved the way for Ne-Yo to make the move from R&B to country with her Cowboy Carter album, which won Album of the Year at the 2025 Grammys.
Ne-Yo’s aspirations for his venture into country music might not be that high, but he’s still doing everything he can to do it right. (He’s actually been working and performing in Nashville, which is a step up from what Beyoncé did).
He talked about his experience in Nashville in a recent interview with Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, and first discussed all of the warnings he got from others before he made the trek to Music City:
“Before I came out here, I had planned to do this and had told a few people I planned to do this, and it came with all of these warnings and all of this fear that people were trying to put on me. Like, ‘Oh man, they’re not real accepting of anything outside of what they do over there in Nashville. It’s really cliquey. If you don’t know this person, or if you haven’t done this, or if it’s not this, they’re not going to (go with it).'”
Not exactly what you want to hear before you head to Nashville.
Fortunately for Ne-Yo, when he got to town and started working with songwriters and producers in Nashville, he found no real barrier of entry. The gate keeping he had been warned about was nonexistent, and the “Closer” singer said that he felt very welcomed in the creative space:
“So I came out here kind of expecting something like that. And I’ve got to say, my experience has been the exact opposite. Every single person that I’ve worked with out here has embraced what I’m trying to do with open arms. Everybody is interested and intrigued about how I’m going to take what I do and what country music is and fuse them together, and what that could sound like.
Everybody has been really receptive. I’m waiting to meet whoever the hell it is that was going to just be the bane of my Nashville existence. This person has not reared their head yet. I’ve walked Broadway a few times at late, late hours and have yet to meet the drunk, racist guy. He hasn’t shown up yet.”
And his time in Nashville ended up being very productive. He’s got a forthcoming country music album on the way (likely sometime this year), and he’s already released two singles this year–”Up Out & Gone” and “Simple Things.” Admittedly, it leans more pop-country, but what else would you really expect from an artist like Ne-Yo?
You can hear him talk more about his country music, and his experience in Nashville, in the interview below:
Oh, and here are those singles I just mentioned, in case you want to check them out:
“Simple Things” by Ne-Yo
“Up Out & Gone” by Ne-Yo
