It’s been four years since Ne-Yo’s last album, but the wait is over.
The R&B singer will release his eighth studio album, Self Explanatory, on July 15. The 13-track collection contains previously released songs by Jeremih (“U 2 Luv”) and Bleu (“Stay Down”), as well as collaborations with Trippie Redd (“Push Up”) and Zae France (“Layin’ Low”). Ne-Yo released a video for his sensuous tune “You Got the Body” last month.
“What I want people to take from this album is just music to live life to, music to feel some emotion to,” he told Jalen Rose. “We got to a place in music where the emotion kinda died down a little bit. Everybody’s real tough, everybody’s real cool. People are afraid to be vulnerable. That vulnerability is what connects us, that ability to lock into another person’s heart.”
Ne-Yo, who just remarried Crystal Renay, began working on the album four years ago, but the pandemic derailed his plans.
“I started this album in 2018, and I was moving through it a little more slowly than normal,” he told Haute Living. “The pandemic really threw a monkey wrench in everything, for everybody — myself included. I wasn’t doing a lot of recording at the time because I was just trying to figure out what the hell was actually going on. It was a moment.”
Self Explanatory arrives July 15. See the tracklist below.
Self Explanatory Tracklist
1. “Layin’ Low” feat. Zae France
2. “You Got The Body”
3. “After Party”
4. “Handle Me Gently”
5. “Don’t Love Me”
6. “U 2 Luv” feat. Jeremih
7. “Push Up” feat. Trippie Redd
8. “Proud of You”
9. “Call Me Up”
10. “What If”
11. “Want It All or Nothing”
12. “No Loot”
13. “Stay Down” feat. Bleu
