Kanye West might have been the headliner at a recent L.A. concert, but all eyes backstage were on one man, Jamie Foxx, who fiddled with his cell phone in a corner.
Men nodded and grinned at him, and a cluster of loitering women smiled when his gaze fell on them. When you are young, rich and you have an Oscar at home, it’s pretty easy to sit back and let the world come to you. But Foxx was too focused on the future to dawdle on the distractions of the present.
“It’s going to be groundbreaking, what I have planned,” Foxx said. “Kanye and me, we’re simpatico. It’s going to be like Batman and Robin. It’s going to pump it up.”
Foxx was talking breathlessly about his music career–that’s the music career that he hopes will follow his film career, his TV sitcom career and his stand-up comic career. This might seem unlikely, but remember, Foxx received a Grammy nomination last week, and his new album, “Unpredictable,” drops Tuesday.
He also has a cameo on West’s hit “Gold Digger,” which is nominated for the record of the year Grammy.
“I’ve got so much more inside me,” the actor said. “I’ve got so much music inside me. Tonight was one of the first great moments. It sets it all up.”
Earlier in the night, West’s show had brought down the house. He did so with the aid of hip-hop’s most sophisticated production and guest appearances by Patti LaBelle, Common and Adam Levine of Maroon 5. But there was no moment more electrifying than the surprise appearance of Foxx.
He and West performed three songs together. It was hard to tell how much of the crowd excitement was at the sight of Foxx as opposed to the sound of Foxx; for Foxx’s climb through pop culture and his channeling of Ray Charles in “Ray” has made him a hero. That won’t be enough to sustain the sort of music career Foxx envisions.
“I got big plans,” he said after the show. “This was just a small part. But it was really good wasn’t it?”
Foxx’s music career is no new project, really–in fact, it was the opening act of his entire life in show business. He was classically trained in piano and sang in choirs as a child. In his youthful daydreams, he was collecting gold records, not Academy Awards.
Every time you turn a corner in Foxx’s L.A. house, you see Ray Charles. Portraits, photos and books; a well-known photograph of the blind soul man hangs in the recording studio.
“Coming in here, making music, that’s what I do,” Foxx said. “Snoop comes over a lot, and when he does, we don’t talk about the record business, we just make music.”
The spirit of Charles is still with Foxx. A song on his album contains a sample of Foxx doing his best Charles in “Ray.” But after “Gold Digger,” isn’t Foxx worried that too much Ray will be viewed as backpedaling or, worse, a crass gimmick?
“The spirit of Ray is in my life now, and it is part of this album, it’s part of the inspiration,” Foxx said. “You hear a splash of Ray, but this album is about me.”
The album is a thoroughly modern R&B offering with hip-hop beats and shimmering layers. It doesn’t have the bombast of R. Kelly’s singing style, but it does share that singer’s penchant for bedroom coaxing with “Can I Take You Home.”
The Foxx here is closer to the R&B smolder he showed on the Twista hit song “Slow Jamz” than on the jumping soul of “Gold Digger.”
“I’ve had a style for a long time, but it’s always been stuck into a TV show here or flashed in an interview there,” Foxx said. “It may be new to you, but not to me.”
Foxx did have an earlier foray in recording with the 1994 album, “Peep This.” It didn’t do well, but Clive Davis, an instrumental figure in the careers of Alicia Keys and Whitney Houston, has guided this new project for his label, J Records.
Foxx recently finished filming Michael Mann’s “Miami Vice.” The old TV show also had a star who tried his hand in the music business.
If you remember Don Johnson’s regrettable “Heartbeat” in 1986, you’re one up on Foxx.
“It sounds like a bad idea,” Foxx said. “This isn’t that. I hope.”
