No, really: Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman proclaimed that Aug. 7, 2024 was officially “Ne-Yo Day” in the city, presenting Ne-Yo with a Key to the City during his first night of his three-show Human Love Rebellion residency at the Encore Theatre at Wynn Las Vegas.
It had already been a full-circle day for the R&B hitmaker, who grew up in Sin City and got his start in the entertainment business as an understudy in the David Cassidy-starring show “EFX.” As a hometown boy, Ne-Yo knew there’d be at least a few familiar faces in the crowd — and that makes his Key to the City even more special.
“I’ve run into a lot of girls that were not interested in me in high school and, yes, it’s a totally different story now,” Ne-Yo tells GRAMMY.com with a smile. “There’s a part of me that wants to be petty, but I can’t do that. [But] when I run into those that were mean in high school, those are always fulfilling moments.”
Ne-Yo’s career has been full of fulfilling moments — beginning with his 2005 chart-topping smash “So Sick,” and followed by two No. 1 albums, 12 Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and three GRAMMY Awards. He celebrates it all with his 100-minute show, which features other favorites like “Because of You” and the diamond-certified Pitbull collab “Give Me Everything.”
In June, he began his journey as an independent artist after nearly 20 years with Motown and Def Jam Records, releasing the confessional single “2 Million Secrets” alongside a “CSI”-inspired video he directed himself. With a fresh start, Ne-Yo says he rarely feels like he’s already two decades into his career.
“The only time it feels like it’s been 20 years is right after a show where my back and my knees are bothering me,” he says with a laugh. “If you don’t see the age out here, I’m feeling it on the inside!”
Ahead of his Las Vegas residency, Ne-Yo sat down with GRAMMY.com to share his most memorable moments with some of his most beloved hits, from a hilarious wardrobe malfunction with “Because of You” to how Jay-Z helped save “Closer.”
“So Sick,” ‘In My Own Words’ (2006)
What instantly comes to mind with “So Sick” is my initial introduction to Stargate. I was at Sony Studios in New York City working with [another] group of producers. [I pass] Stargate’s manager — his name is Tim, I met him before briefly. He said, “Hey, are you busy right now? I would love you to come in for a second and meet my producers.”
So I walk with him over to the studio — mind you, he says they do R&B, they do hip-hop, they do a little bit of everything. And Tim is Black, so I’m expecting to walk in the room and see two Black guys. I walk in the room and they are absolutely not Black. They are two tall, lanky, white guys with accents. They’re from Norway. And I’m like, These guys are gonna do some R&B music for me, huh?
The very first track they played was the music that we now know as “So Sick.” I listened to it for like, 10 seconds, and I’m like, “Run it back.” So they played it again, and by the time the song finished playing the second time, the song was written. I wrote that song in maybe 3 minutes.
It was a song that needed to be written for a long time. It just hadn’t found the right backing music for it yet.
“Sexy Love,” ‘In My Own Words’ (2006)
Here’s the first time I realized that Stargate was producing around what I was writing. I wrote “Sexy Love” to the skeletal track they gave me, and then about a week later, I go to the studio and they’re like, “You got to hear this.” A beat comes on, and it’s vaguely what I’d recalled, but completely different. They basically changed the whole beat based around [what] I wrote. So the “Sexy Love” we now know, that was not the original track.
I’m like, “I don’t mind, because it sounds great, but why did y’all do that?” And they were like, “We just felt like this direction complemented the song more.” They’re the only producers that I’ve ever worked with that do that.
Nowadays, the producer is kind of a celebrity too. Everybody has a tag, and you hear the producer’s name before the song starts. You’ll never hear that from Stargate. They’re like, “You’re gonna listen to this song, and you’re gonna love it so much that you’re gonna ask who did it.”
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