Sometimes, you never know when, where, or how your big break is going to come. For a long time, Ne-Yo didn’t even envision himself as an artist. It’s hard to imagine now, with countless R&B classics under his belt. However, for a while, he only saw himself as a songwriter, and even then, he was still cutting his teeth early on.
It wasn’t until writing “Let Me Love You” for Mario that gave him the big break he needed. That moment also stemmed from an initial rejection. In a 2021 interview with Billboard, Ne-Yo admitted that starting out, making music for himself was far from his mind. He was solely trying to write for others, which led to a meeting with the legendary Dr. Dre in hopes of being signed.
“I’m tripping a little bit. He knows that I’m a writer. So every track that he gave me already had a song on it. He was trying to decide between me and this other artist, whose name I cannot remember right now. So he would play the track and say, ‘You think you can write something to this?’” the “Sexy Love” crooner recalled.
Ne-Yo Recalls Early Rejection From Dr. Dre Leading to His First Big Hit
Ne-Yo breezily rattles through the songs but loses out to another artist because “he was a little bit more ‘hood’ than I was.” However, in those settings, you never know who you’ll meet. In Ne-Yo’s case, he ran into an emerging Scott Storch, who would go on to define a significant chunk of the 2000s. Storch saw his potential immediately and suggested he reach out when he’s in Miami.
His manager quickly scrambles to get Ne-Yo down to Miami. Coincidentally, Mario was already there. Everything was magic from there, although it definitely led him to believe he was only meant to build other artists.
“We did, I think, three songs,” Ne-Yo recalled. “And ‘Let Me Love You’ was the second song that we did. At the time, we knew it was something special, but we had no idea that it was going to do what it did. So I wasn’t trying to be an artist at this point.”
“After that whole Dr. Dre thing happened, I’m like, ‘All right, clearly I’m not supposed to be an artist. I’m gonna just write for other people,’” Ne-Yo added. “So there was no balance. There was no artistry at this point; it was just writing.”
The post Ne-Yo Recalls How a Huge Hip-Hop Icon Rejection Led to His Big Break: ‘I Wasn’t Trying To Be an Artist’ appeared first on VICE.
