Singer-songwriter Ne-Yo is still intimidated

The performer Ne-Yo is known as a singer-songwriter, but to hear him tell it, the songwriting is what it's all about. He speaks with Anthony Mason For The Record:

He's one of the most successful songwriters of the past decade. At 32, Ne-Yo has already written Number 1 hits for Rihanna ( "Take a Bow"), for Beyonce ("Irreplaceable"), and for himself ("So Sick").

"Do you know a hit when you've written it?" asked Mason.

"Nope. I wish I did. I would be a lot richer if I did!" Ne-Yo laughed.

"I am the person who can write a song that a four-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 40-year-old can all enjoy. I'm that guy. And I'm all right with that, that's cool."

To listen to "Non-Fiction" (full album stream) by Ne-Yo, click on the video embed below.

He's had three platinum albums, won three Grammys, and in 2012, the Songwriters Hall of Fame gave him their Starlight Award for gifted young songwriters.

"I'm a songwriter first," he said at the award ceremony. "I'm a songwriter that can sing a little bit. So this is my Grammy; this is bigger than a Grammy for me. I still don't feel like I deserve this yet."

Mason said, "I got the sense, at least in the beginning, you didn't really like your own voice."

"Hated it," Ne-Yo said.

Why? "Because I didn't sound like the guys that my mom listened to. That was the O'Jays and Teddy Pendergrass. that stuff. I couldn't do that."

He was born Shaffer Smith in Camden, Arkansas; his stage name, Ne-Yo, was later given him by a producer.

At age nine he moved to Las Vegas with his mother and sister after his father left the family.

"My mom saw early on that I had a lot of pent-up aggravation behind that," he said. Her advice? "Write it down."

The journals he began to write would become the seed ground for his songs.

He grew up surrounded by women: "Oh yeah. It was my mother, my sister and five aunts, and me."

"So how did that effect you, do you think?" asked Mason.

"A lot of the songs I write are from, you know, things that went on in that house. The Beyoncé record, 'Irreplaceable,' that's about one of my aunts and a guy that she was dating."

When we visited Ne-Yo at a studio in London's Power Station, he was working on songs for Rihanna. A producer had given him a beat to work with. "And then from that I'll put melodies on top of that as well as lyrics," he said.

Again and again, he listened to the track, waiting for the words to come.

"You've come in here today assuming you're gonna leave with a song?" asked Mason.

"Well, yeah, that's normally the assumption."

"That's a lot of pressure."

"No, no, no, no."

"No?"

"This is what I do, man."

"Is it ever hard for you to give up a song that you've written that you know is really good?" Mason asked.

"Yes!" Ne-Yo laughed. "There's nothing harder!"

The hardest to surrender, he says, was "Take a Bow":

And don't tell me you're sorry 'cause you're not,
And baby when I know you're only sorry you got caught.
But you put on quite a show, really had me going.
But now it's time to go, curtain's finally closing.

"With 'Take a Bow,' that's my story," Ne-Yo said. "That's like one of the first times that I was blatantly cheated on by a girl. Took that song and reversed it -- made me a girl basically -- and gave it to Rihanna."

Some songs are never finished. In 2009, Ne-Yo was working on an album with Michael Jackson -- 10 songs the singer planned to record.

"Of course, after his untimely passing, we didn't get a chance to do it," he said.

"So what are you going to do with those songs?"

"I couldn't possibly sell them to somebody else," Ne-Yo said. "They were supposed to be Michael Jackson's songs. You don't give those away."

Ne-Yo now has another big hit, "Time of Our Lives," with Pitbull; and he's just released his sixth album, "Non-Fiction."

"I wouldn't think much intimidates you at this point," said Mason.

"Oh, why is that?"

"I don't know. You've done a lot."

"Uhm, I feel like if I ever get to the point where I'm not intimidated, I should probably quit because I don't care anymore," said Ne-Yo.

And I'm so sick of love songs,
So tired of tears,
So done with wishing you were still here.
Said I'm so sick of love songs,
So sad and slow,
So why can't I turn off the radio?

"I have two kids now," he said. "So now it's, like, take the time to make sure that everything is as good as it could possibly be so that you can feed your kids. So the intimidation factor is that much higher."

For more info:

• neyothegentleman.com
• "Non-Fiction" by Ne-Yo (Motown); Available via Amazon and iTunes