Gliding across the stage, crooning “come closer” over a driving beat, he manhandles the microphone. Ne-Yo, the R&B triple-threat singer, performer and songwriter, is rocking a gray Tom Ford suit, a silver tie cinched with a tie bar — and his trademark fedora.
His retro style — or “swag” as he calls it — influences every aspect of the performance. Surrounded by four dancers, he sings in front of an old-school band with a full horn section. His moves — rocking in time combined with slices of fancy footwork — rival Usher’s for smoothness.
In today’s music world, it doesn’t get much sharper than this.
The 29-year-old has been up-and-coming for years. Love songs are his thing — he’s written hits including “Take a Bow” for Rihanna, and is scheduled to work on Michael Jackson’s next album. But with the release of his own “Year of the Gentleman,” Ne-Yo is stepping into the spotlight in a whole new way — as a genuine fashion plate, raising the rules of style for the R&B set.
Though female R&B artists are often some of the best dressers around, guy singers are overdue for a wardrobe makeover. But Ne-Yo’s style is steeped in the long-ago — the ’40s and ’50s, to be exact — “when music to me was its most real,” he says during a recent backstage interview.
“Back then, it meant something to be an entertainer,” he said. “You would see the Rat Pack in a suit and tie, but if it wasn’t a suit and tie, it was a shirt with a collar — something mature. You were fly 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The singer is hardly ever without a hat. By day, he wears one of his many Kangol newsboy caps. At night, he switches to short-brimmed fedoras — cocked to the side.
Born in Arkansas as Shaffer C. Smith, he was raised by a single mother in Las Vegas. The Smith clan was “by no means poor, but we weren’t rich,” says Ne-Yo, who now lives in Atlanta. Self-conscious about his hairline, he started wearing hats in high school. And now, Ne-Yo is so well-known for his fedoras, he’s in talks with a company to start his own hat line.
But looking dapper is only a small part of being a gentleman, he says. “People think if they dress a certain way, that will make them a gentleman,” says the singer, who lists Jay-Z and Kanye West as artists whose style he admires. “Nothing could be further from the truth. You could be a gentleman in jeans and a T-shirt. What it is to be a gentleman is inside you — it’s your swag, your charisma, your integrity, the way you treat people.”
Still, “wearing your pants belted around your thighs, with your butt fully exposed? No. … Style matters. It shouldn’t matter, but it matters. We are all walking, talking, living, breathing billboards.”
Ne-Yo wears a Neil Barrett suit, a Tom Ford shirt, a tie with clip, vintage fedora and cuff links. Los Angeles Times PHOTO
