Feature Article |
Is This Kid About to Be a Star?
By Jessica Pressler
He built a studio in one of his bedrooms, where Kevin practiced. “It was like Joe Jackson” — Michael’s notoriously demanding father — “without the beating,” Kevin says. “Everything except the violence. Every-thing.”
Not that he wasn’t into it. After school and on weekends, he and his friends would scrutinize music videos. “I am really really at the point of being obsessed with Beyoncé,” Kevin says. “I have, like, every performance of her and Destiny’s Child taped. We studied them.” He even has an onstage persona like Beyoncé’s. “He’s like the ladies’ man, Mr. Cool, Mr. Swagger,” Kevin explains. “Totally comfortable. In control. Which is not like real life. At all.”
At night, Star would take Kevin to concerts, where he finagled introductions to artists his son admired, like Janet Jackson and Erykah Badu. Star is a formidable talker, although he believes a higher power was responsible for these interactions. “I believe in Jesus and God and the Father, and I believe God put those people in front of us,” he says. “I would say, we’re gonna go, and God would always just put those people in front of us.”
One day at Sam Ash at the Cherry Hill Mall, God put a guy in front of Star who knew another guy named Ken Joseph, manager of a young R&B group called City High. Star called him and called him. Until finally Joseph asked: You got something hot, for real?
And Ric Star said, Yeah, I got this kid named Neo.
“Neo” was what Kevin was calling himself when Joseph first took him to meet Josh Deutsch at Virgin Records. Deutsch had called Ken Joseph — about something else, a member of City High — and Ken told him about Kevin: “I said, ‘I have the next Prince,’” Joseph says. Kevin sang a gospel song at the Virgin office, and Deutsch was, he says, “blown away.” But the other executives were not as convinced. Kevin and Joseph came away with a minor development deal, but the songs Kevin recorded again failed to thrill the execs. Joseph shopped them to other labels: Columbia said No. Def Jam, No. LaFace’s L.A. Reid said No. No. No. Kevin went back to Chester and waited. By the time Deutsch was ready to start Downtown Records, Kevin was almost two years older, and the name “Ne-Yo” had been taken by a Def Jam crooner from Arkansas.
This would turn out to be a blessing, Kevin points out, since a soul singer from Philly named Neo might bring up unfortunate memories of the jazzy-R&B “neo-soul” sound that characterized Philly music in the late ’90s and was a commercial flop. “I try to stay out of the neo-soul scene because I feel like there’s a stigma, like you have to be all earthy all the time,” says Kevin. “And let’s face it, it doesn’t sell records.”
Not that he wasn’t into it. After school and on weekends, he and his friends would scrutinize music videos. “I am really really at the point of being obsessed with Beyoncé,” Kevin says. “I have, like, every performance of her and Destiny’s Child taped. We studied them.” He even has an onstage persona like Beyoncé’s. “He’s like the ladies’ man, Mr. Cool, Mr. Swagger,” Kevin explains. “Totally comfortable. In control. Which is not like real life. At all.”
At night, Star would take Kevin to concerts, where he finagled introductions to artists his son admired, like Janet Jackson and Erykah Badu. Star is a formidable talker, although he believes a higher power was responsible for these interactions. “I believe in Jesus and God and the Father, and I believe God put those people in front of us,” he says. “I would say, we’re gonna go, and God would always just put those people in front of us.”
One day at Sam Ash at the Cherry Hill Mall, God put a guy in front of Star who knew another guy named Ken Joseph, manager of a young R&B group called City High. Star called him and called him. Until finally Joseph asked: You got something hot, for real?
And Ric Star said, Yeah, I got this kid named Neo.
“Neo” was what Kevin was calling himself when Joseph first took him to meet Josh Deutsch at Virgin Records. Deutsch had called Ken Joseph — about something else, a member of City High — and Ken told him about Kevin: “I said, ‘I have the next Prince,’” Joseph says. Kevin sang a gospel song at the Virgin office, and Deutsch was, he says, “blown away.” But the other executives were not as convinced. Kevin and Joseph came away with a minor development deal, but the songs Kevin recorded again failed to thrill the execs. Joseph shopped them to other labels: Columbia said No. Def Jam, No. LaFace’s L.A. Reid said No. No. No. Kevin went back to Chester and waited. By the time Deutsch was ready to start Downtown Records, Kevin was almost two years older, and the name “Ne-Yo” had been taken by a Def Jam crooner from Arkansas.
This would turn out to be a blessing, Kevin points out, since a soul singer from Philly named Neo might bring up unfortunate memories of the jazzy-R&B “neo-soul” sound that characterized Philly music in the late ’90s and was a commercial flop. “I try to stay out of the neo-soul scene because I feel like there’s a stigma, like you have to be all earthy all the time,” says Kevin. “And let’s face it, it doesn’t sell records.”
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