Ne-Yo Interview, Stomp The Yard

Movies Online recently caught up with songwriter, arranger and vocalist Ne-Yo at the Los Angeles Press Day for Stomp the Yard. The film, directed by award-winning music video and commercial director Sylvain White, is a compelling drama about the quest for individuality and the power of fraternity. It’s filled with explosive energy and features some of the most original and exhilarating dance performances ever filmed.

When an urban dance battle ends in violence, champion street dancer DJ Williams (Columbus Short) travels from the underground clubs of inner city Los Angeles to the moneyed precincts of Atlanta’s prestigious, historically black Truth University. Although his athleticism and ambition have made him a top competitor in the gritty world of street dancing, DJ feels out of place at Truth, with its elite fraternities and expectations of professional success.

It is in this alien environment that DJ discovers the world of stepping. An African-American tradition that has evolved from the centuries-old African Boot Dance, it combines precise dance steps with chants and percussive hand and foot movements. At Truth, it also plays a pivotal role in the longstanding rivalry between two campus fraternities.

When DJ shows off his dance skills at a local club, he attracts the attention of Truth’s top fraternities and campus beauty April (Meagan Good), setting off a vicious feud with April’s boyfriend Grant (Darrin Henson) – who also happens to be a star stepper for Mu Gamma Xi.

Ne-Yo – a.k.a. Shaffer Smith – was born in Arkansas and raised in Las Vegas. He began writing songs as a teenager, penning material for multi-platinum artists such as Mary J. Blige, B2K, Faith Evans and Musiq, as well as Mario’s "Let Me Love You,” one of 2004’s most played songs on urban radio stations across the United States. His first release, "In My Own Words,” came out in early 2006 and debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, supported by the hit single "So Sick,” which has become one of the most played radio songs of the year. The album has currently sold over 2 ½ million units and is approaching triple platinum status.

In 2006, Ne-Yo executive produced the soundtrack for "Save the Last Dance 2” and appeared on Remy Ma’s "There’s Something About Remy” and Ghostface Killah’s "Fishscale.” He has written huge hits for such music superstars as Beyonce ("Irreplaceable”), Jay-Z ("Hollywood”), Mario Vazquez ("Gallery”), Omarion, Christina Milian, Ghostface Killah, Fabolous and more. Ne-Yo was recently nominated for 2006 American Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards. He makes his feature film debut with "Stomp the Yard.”

Ne-Yo is a sensational artist and a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about his impressive career and his new movie, Stomp the Yard:

Q: Is this your last interview of the day?

Ne-Yo: No, actually.

Q: I was almost excited for you.

Ne-Yo: You almost had me. Nah, it’s okay, I could be flipping burgers right now. And with that being said, I’ll be at as many interviews as necessary.

Q: But then you wouldn’t have been able to have the dice. (referring to the bling around his neck)

Ne-Yo: Yeah, it wouldn’t look as shiny while flipping burgers.

Q: Please tell me the origin of your name?

Ne-Yo: Ne-Yo, the name Ne-Yo, it was given to me by a producer friend of mine, his name is Big D Evans and he said, ‘In my opinion you see music the way Neo sees the Matrix from the movie The Matrix.’ It’s a reference from that movie.

Q: We were going to ask if that was your favorite movie?

Ne-Yo: One of, absolutely, one of.

Q: What is you given name if I might ask?

Ne-Yo: Shaffer Chimere Smith is my given name.

Q: So what was it like doing the dancing in this film?

Ne-Yo: It was a challenge all the way across the board, just because this is not anything that I’ve ever done before, as far as the dancing to this level and the acting. Just all the way across the board, it was something new for me. I thank God for Columbus and Meagan especially as far as the acting is concerned, because when I got in there, I swear you could hear my heart beating from over there I was so nervous. I had no idea what I was doing, and they really like literally held my hand through the whole situation, helped me with my lines, helped me with this scene, with that scene. I was expecting ego, attitude, like, ‘Ah, here comes this R & B dude trying to do the acting thing. Let’s sit back and laugh at him.’ That’s what I was expecting to happen, but it was the complete opposite, everybody was overly helpful. Before I had the question out of my mouth, they hit me with the answer, and I really, really thank God for that.

Q: So is acting inspiration, or was this just the right time and right place for you?

Ne-Yo: To be completely honest with you, I’ve never really had the desire to act, just because it looked difficult to me. Even before I knew it, I knew that acting was more than just standing in front of a camera and pretending, you know what I mean? So I never really had a desire to try it, but actually again, Columbus – I met Columbus on the set of Save the Last Dance 2, which was another movie we did earlier this year that I had a role in about that big (pinches his fingers together), wait a minute, about that big (makes the space between his fingers even smaller) Literally, you look down to turn your phone off, ‘Oh you missed it.’ It was that small. But I met him on the set of that film, and we became friends really, really fast, so when they approached him about this film, he actually said my name to them. So they gave me a call and said they’d love for me to come down and audition, I did, me shaking it all, and I got it.

Q: Are you close to the character that you play in this?

Ne-Yo: A little bit, a little, little bit. Rich Brown is loud, energetic and just don’t care 24 hours a day, whereas Ne-Yo might not care these few hours out of the day, but for these I’ve got to put the serious face on because I have a business to run.

Q: Is that the image of being that or just outside of the music business and industry, even entertainment, that same thing?

Ne-Yo: Both, both, both. He’s one facet to the multi-faceted personality that is me.

Q: So are you as stingy with your condoms as your character?

Ne-Yo: Yeah, you have to be, you have to be, it’s too much stuff floating in the water to swim anywhere, no, I need all of mine, come on.

Q: Can you talk about doing the step dancing? Had you ever done it before? It’s so traditional and you wanted to do it right.

Ne-Yo: Ah man, no, I’d never ever done it before. It looks easier than it is. I would definitely say that. I went in really thinking that I was going to just knock it out, okay, I’ve seen this before, I’ve been to a couple of step show before, and I have family that’s in college, so I had seen it, but I had never done it. So learning it, man, in the beginning I was like, ‘Oh my God, can I do it over here in the corner so that these professional dancers don’t laugh at me,’ but then I’d look and the professional dancers are having problems with it, so I’m like, alright I’m not completely dumb in here. Physically [it’s] some of the most difficult stuff I’ve ever done, just because it’s like – okay, the top half of your body is doing one thing, where the bottom half of your body is doing something completely different, and you’ve got a line of guys over here that are doing something completely different from what you’re doing, and then line of guys over here that are doing something different from what they’re doing and what you’re doing, and it all has to make sense. That all has to make sense as one beat. And it’s not like regular dancing where you’re actually dancing to music. In stepping you kind of are the music, you kind of make the music as you’re dancing. Me and Meagan, we keep saying, ‘It’s tapping your head, rubbing your stomach, doing the alphabet backwards, and tap dancing all while upside down.’ That’s what stepping is.

Q: But she didn’t have to do it.

Ne-Yo: No, but she watched, so she vicariously felt our pain.

Q: It didn’t look easy at all.

Ne-Yo: No, no it wasn’t. And then on top of that, you can’t really tell in the film, because of the way that they shot it, but say the camera is here, you have to do the whole dance sequence from start to finish with the camera here, then you have to do the whole dance sequence with it here, then here, then here, then here, so by the end of it you’ve done it 15 times from start to finish all the way down, and it’s movement through the whole thing, and it has to look like one take. So you’ve got to keep you energy up, so certain cats that were not in shape had to get in shape. I was one of those cats.

Q: Do you relate to acting like dancing and performing musically?

Ne-Yo: Not really. The dancing stuff, like I’m not Chris Brown, but I can dance a little bit, so that wasn’t as difficult as the acting, that was the hardest part of it for me, just because for a person to have that much control over their emotions, that was something that was completely alien to me. In song writing, you kind of make the emotion, whereas in acting it’s like, ‘Okay, you’re sad – go.’ No, that doesn’t work. No. I don’t call myself an actual actor, but you’ll here me refer to Columbus and all them as actual actors because I am not. For example, I remember I was having a conversation, it was me, Columbus and Meagan, we were all just sitting talking and laughing about something, the director goes, ‘Action,’ bam – Meagan just turned the tears on. Just cold. I’m like (he shrugs) until I can do that, I am not an actor. But overall I had a lot of fun putting this together, a lot of fun.

Q: Will you get an acting coach now?

Ne-Yo: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, before I step foot on the set of another movie, I’m definitely going to try to take some acting classes, something to really hone that skill, because I lucked out this time around, they gave me the silly role. It’s never really been an issue for me to be silly. Had they given me Columbus’ role, the movie might not have been as good.

Q: Have you seen the whole thing?

Ne-Yo: I haven’t seen the finished one, I saw a rough copy. The copy I saw didn’t have any music in it yet. The steps was all quiet because they hadn’t done the sound yet, but it was just enough to show us the story. And what I got even from that rough copy is that this is not a dance movie, this is a movie with a strong story and powerful characters, with fantastic dancing in it, but the dancing is not the driving force of this movie, at least not to me. The historical element and the traditions of the fraternity and just not being afraid to try to better yourself; there’s a real serious underlying meaning in this movie that definitely makes the dancing almost secondary to what’s going on in the story, and that’s what I want people to take from this movie. You’re going to go in expecting a dance movie, and do that, I want you to do that, so that when you see how much heart this story has, it just really blows your mind that much more.

Q: And what did you think of your performance?

Ne-Yo: If I must toot my own horn, I think I did pretty good, being my first time out I think I did alright, with the help of the actual actors on the set I think I did alright.

Q: Was it hard for you to watch yourself?

Ne-Yo: Yeah, yeah, it was definitely one of these (slumps down in his chair with his collar hiding his face). You look at who’s watching me, watching me. It was hard just because I’ve always been my worst critic in anything that I’ve ever done and to go into something like that completely knowing nothing of it, I was extra special critical, like, ‘Oh God that looks so corny.’ But then I’m looking around at everybody else and everybody else is like, ‘Okay, not bad.’ Oh, okay, they like it, okay cool. I guess I did alright then.

Q: As you were walking around the campus interacting with people and thinking about the traditions, was there anything that came up for you in terms of feelings?

Ne-Yo: I was blown away by how ignorant I was to the whole thing going in. Like I said, I’ve been to one or two step shows before, but I didn’t know anything of the historics (history) of it. I didn’t know where it came from. I didn’t know that Martin Luther King was in a fraternity. It goes back so far and it’s so much more than a group of guys with funny letters on their jacket that get together and clap hands and stomp their feet. It’s so much more than that, and I had no idea. And the other actors as well, nobody really knew much about it other than the small portrayal that you see on TV every blue moon. So that was another reason that I wanted to do this movie, just to really get that out there, to really show that a fraternity or sorority is more than just a boys’ club or a girls’ club. There were actually Greeks on set as we were doing this film, and they were a little scary, just because these are really passionate people and they were super duper adamant about, ‘Yo, it has to look like this. If it does not look like this, it is not Greek.’ And it’s like they were really, really, really making sure that we were on our p’s and q’s about making this look the way it was supposed to look.

Q: Was it a challenge for Sylvain to say ‘we need music for the film’?

Ne-Yo: No, no, I only submitted one or two songs for the sound track. Honestly it was a little bit of a challenge just because I was so removed as far as being a singer/songwriter from this whole situation – like I really was trying to approach it like I’m an actor so when they asked me about music I was like ‘ooooh, ummmmh, okay.’ I didn’t really know…I had kind of taken myself out of that mentally so I didn’t really know what to give them. I had to actually step away from it for a minute and just regroup and then turn back into the singer/songwriter and go ‘Okay, here’s the song that makes sense to what’s going on in the film.’

Q: Where are you from originally and how did you get from there to here?

Ne-Yo: Well I was born in Camden, Arkansas. Camden is a town, not a city, a town because it’s literally that big and not even on most maps, one paved road, dirt roads crossing it type of situation.

Q: Close to what?

Ne-Yo: Closer to Pine Bluff in Arkansas. I was born there. I was there until I was about five and my dad moved us all to Las Vegas which is where I did the majority of my growing up. I went to high school out there and everything and then right after high school I moved from Vegas to here, to California, and pursued this music and the ball’s pretty much been rolling ever since.

Q: Why Vegas? That’s a really big change and transition from a small town in Arkansas to Las Vegas.

Ne-Yo: I know. Well my mom is from Arkansas. Dad is from Vegas and drives trucks so driving he met my mom, had me, fell in love, got married and moved the family to Vegas. Dad turned out to be a jerk so they separated. Dad moved to Arkansas, mom stayed in Vegas. So the first half of my life it was ping pong back and forth until my dad finally said, ‘screw this.’ So it’s me, my sister and my mom in Vegas.

Q: When you talk about your music, some of the songs you’ve written, I love the song you wrote on Heather Headley’s last album.

Ne-Yo: Thank you.

Q: And the Irreplaceable song is on the charts right now with Beyonce. What is your writing process like? Is it all from personal experiences or what do you do?

Ne-Yo: It really depends song to song. The majority of the time it’s personal experience. I try to go off something that’s happened to me personally only because I don’t feel that I can write a song about something that I don’t know anything about.

Q: So were your bags to the left or were her bags to the left?

Ne-Yo: Well that particular song, the way that that one came about, I wasn’t really thinking about any personal experience. I was thinking about Shania Twain and Faith Hill when I wrote that song.

Q: Really?

Ne-Yo: Because, okay, let me just explain. When I first heard the track – I know that sounds weird – when I first heard the track, produced by Stargate by the way, they just played me the guitar. There was no drums on it. There was no nothing. There was just that [imitates sound of strumming guitar] and I was like this sounds like country and western music and then they put the drums on it which brought it back to the R&B side of things so I was like, ‘Okay, let me basically try to make an R&B country and western song.’ And if you listen to any country music, there’s always a story and there’s always an in depth story. It’s always empowerment or get your bags and leave or whatever the case may be. That’s a lot of country western music. That’s the truth of the matter. So I just basically did my version of what an R&B country and western song would sound like in my opinion and that’s where the song came from.

Q: That’s like Ray Charles and Lionel Richie. They both have that kind of R&B and country western storytelling.

Ne-Yo: I love country music. R&B music a lot of the time is so much about self glorification or sex or whatever the case may be. To have a song like…in country music there’s a song – I don’t know who sings it, I don’t know the name of the song but the line is ‘I’m not as good as I…’ No, wait, ‘I’m not as good as I was but I’m as good as I ever was once.’ No, ‘I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good as I ever was once.’ Meaning I’m not going to put it on you like I used to but I’m going to give it to you real good one time and then I’m going to sleep. No R&B song is gonna say that. There’s not a R&B song on the face of the planet that’s gonna say that. The dude is basically talking about male impotence. You don’t do that. You don’t hear that in R&B. That’s why I love country and western music because they’re not afraid to go there. You know what I mean?

Q: When’s your next album coming out?

Ne-Yo: I’m putting it together as we speak. We’re trying to shoot for April or May but you should hear a single as soon in February I believe.

Q: How do you walk the line between singing and writing for yourself and writing for others?

Ne-Yo: I really don’t. In a lot of instances it’s like if an artist comes to me and asks me for a song and I go into the studio then whatever comes out of that particular session is for that artist no matter how good it is. You know I don’t do the ‘Okay, I’ll just keep this one.’ I can’t do that. If it came from a session that was for this person, it’s that person’s song. Now if I’m just writing, just random for nobody in particular, and I come up with something fantastic, then of course I’m going to keep it for myself. Let’s put it that way.

Q: Is there anyone you’d love to write for that you haven’t yet?

Ne-Yo: Oh god, that is a list a mile long but at the top of that list, if I could write a song for this person, I could die the following day and be alright with that. It would have to be Prince. I would love, love, love to write a song with or for Prince. I would love it. That would be the one where I could really sit back and go, ‘You know what? I’ve made it.’

Q: Now is he your musical inspiration?

Ne-Yo: One of, absolutely.

Q: Who are the others?

Ne-Yo: Well there’s Prince, there’s Michael Jackson, there’s Stevie Wonder and then there’s Sammy Davis, Jr. Actually the whole rat pack, honestly.

Q: So who makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up? That’s my favorite line from "Sexy Love.”

Ne-Yo: Thank you very much. As of right this second, nobody. I’m really so focused on everything that’s going on. I’m trying to make 2007 what 2006 wasn’t better so I don’t really have the time to find that woman that’s going to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Because that’s not a woman that you just bump into. You gotta look for her.

Q: Is there a chance that you and Chris will collaborate on something?

Ne-Yo: Absolutely, absolutely.

Q: Was it because you guys were working on this that you got closer?

Ne-Yo: No, Me and Chris have been friends from before his album came out, before my album came out. We have one mutual friend, Tina Davis, who was his manager. Tina Davis, at the time when I got signed to Def Jam, she was the NR person that actually took me into L.A. Reid’s office so she’s partially responsible for me being at Def Jam. And then shortly after that she left Def Jam to start managing Chris full time so we met through her and you know it’s just that instant click (snaps fingers) and we’ve been friends ever since.

Q: How ironic is it that Mario has a film out as well?

Ne-Yo: I don’t know anything about that. It looks good though from the preview. It looks like it might be pretty good, you know. That’s another good friend of mine. I wish him all the best. He got another album coming out real soon. I got a couple tracks on there as well. Yeah, that dude is coming worth something.

Q: How long were you a struggling artist when you moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles? Did it happen overnight?

Ne-Yo: No, no, no, it definitely was not an overnight situation. I mean honestly it wasn’t too, too long just because we were in talks with different people before we left Vegas. I left Vegas with a group of friends. We were a singing group and we moved out to Vegas, I mean out to California, without any money at all but a lot of hope and a lot of stars in our eyes. ‘We’re gonna go and we’re gonna to sit in front of the Capitol Records building and we’re gonna just sing until the President comes out and gives us a deal.’ That was literally our plan. We sat down at Denny’s and wrote that out. That was what we were gonna do. And we did, we really did that and we got security to escort us off the [premises]. Shortly after that, the group just through having to get different odd jobs and everything we just disbanded and I went on and kept trying to do it myself and caught a break.

Q: So is there one piece of advice you’d give to people who’d like to emulate you?

Ne-Yo: One piece of advice I’d give to anybody trying to emulate me is do not get used to sleeping because I don’t. I don’t. Really, I don’t. If I’m not doing something regarding me and my artistry then I’m writing for somebody else and if I’m not writing for somebody else, now I’m reading scripts. If I’m not reading scripts, I’m playing with my son. If I’m not playing with my son, I’m doing something regarding me being an artist. So it’s a vicious circle and within that circle, there’s not a lot of hours of sleep.

Q: How old is your son?

Ne-Yo: He is sixteen months and he is the most beautiful little boy on the face of the planet.

Q: You’re not getting much sleep if he’s sixteen months old.

Ne-Yo: No, you should see my hotel room. He was here last night and I don’t know how he flipped the couch over but…

Q: At sixteen months?

Ne-Yo: Yeah, I’m exaggerating but basically saying that the room looked like a tornado hit it.

Q: What’s his name?

Ne-Yo: Chimere. Yeah, he’s a little ball of energy. He does not sleep. It was cool for the first five, six hours but you know when 6AM rolled around, I was like, ‘Are you serious?’ He’s not going to lay down, right? Goodness, gracious. But I love him to death. I love him to death.

Q: And how do you spell Chimere?

Ne-Yo: C-H-I-M-E-R-E. Where that name came from, there was a bottle of French perfume that my mom used to love. It’s not even pronounced Chimere. I don’t know how to pronounce it.

Q: Chimere.

Ne-Yo: You know it?

Q: I speak French.

Q: Does it mean smoke? Is that what it means?

Q: I’d have to look it up.

Q: French perfume that mommy loved.

Ne-Yo: Yeah, my uncles used to tease me all the time. They would take the bottle (imitating uncles) ‘Ooooh, you’re perfume, you’re perfume’ because that’s my middle name and everybody in my family calls me Chimere because Schaffer was my father’s name and they don’t like my father, so…

Q: Chris said he wants to put the step into some of his shows. Is that something that you might…?

Ne-Yo: Oh, yeah, I already have. You really didn’t get to see too much of it in the film but I learned how to use the cane like the Kapras do so there’s a whole segment of my show that I dedicated solely to that work so you know I’m doing the thing with the cane and all that stuff.

Q: So you still know all the routines from the film then?

Ne-Yo: Some of them, yeah. They’ve been branded on my brain. That was hell putting that stuff together. It really, really was. Just because it was so alien. Like how the hell – what is that [imitates dance move]? But yeah, you know, I still got it up there. I have nightmares about it.

Q: What is something that you want to do next?

Ne-Yo: As far as filmwise?

Q: Just anything for you. What’s the next step?

Ne-Yo: Well like I said, I’m putting the finishing touches on my second album right now. That’s really my main focus other than the promotion of this movie right now. So writing for a whole bunch of people – to name a few – Britney Spears, just did some stuff for her in New York; Whitney Houston is coming back – strong, strong, strong, strong, strong, strong – oh yeah, she’s coming back; Celine Dion is another one I’m about to go in with really, really soon. Hey man, I’m trying to start 2007 off with a bang.

Q: Were you in the studio with Whitney?

Ne-Yo: No, not at all. I haven’t had a chance to do that yet but I’ve talked to Clive (Davis) once or twice about the project and he’s letting me hear some of the things that she’s gonna do.

Q: What’s the theme of it?

Ne-Yo: It’s still very much on the drawing board so there’s not a whole lot of a theme. Like I haven’t even started writing for her yet because with everything that’s going on from her last album to now is a lot of stuff to talk about -- maybe some stuff she don’t want to talk about -- so I don’t even want to put pen to pad before I sit down with her and go, ‘Okay, What do you not want me to talk about?’ Because I’m gonna to go there with anything else.

Q: How did Celine Dion come up?

Ne-Yo: That was a shock to me. My publisher is good friends with somebody in her camp. She’s about to finish up the show that she has in Vegas right now and you know they said they were talking about her putting another album together so they were going down the list of people she normally works with and my publisher threw my name in the mix and she said, ‘Oh!, him (tapping the table loudly). I want that guy.’

Q: So Celine Dion handpicked you?

Ne-Yo: Yeah.

Q: Can you talk a little bit like when you sit in the room with Celine or Britney, what’s your process in terms of getting information out of them and how does it influence your songs?

Ne-Yo: Pretty much the same way that this is going on. You ask questions and you get the answers. I haven’t got the opportunity to meet Celine yet. I haven’t started working on that project yet but they reached out and said that she definitely wants me to be a major part of her project. As far as Britney, her whole thing was she’s tired of talking about Kevin, tired of comeback songs. She said she has a CD disk changer of 12 CD’s full of Britney’s back songs and she was like, ‘Can I just make a song? Does it have to be my triumphant return every time?’ And you know, I was like, ‘I see your point.’ So I didn’t give her one of those. She’s like, ‘I just want hit records. That’s all.’ So I said, ‘Look, alright.’

Q: Did Columbus give you any advice about working with her because I know he choreographed?

Ne-Yo: Nah, he didn’t really give me any advice as far as working with her. She’s a lot stronger than people would think and she’s not as – I mean I hate to put it this way – but she’s not as dumb as people think she is. She’s really not, you know. Her whole thing is like, ‘I’m human. I’ve made a bunch of mistakes. Okay, I see that, but goodness gracious, must I be crucified for jaywalking?’ is basically how she looks at it. It’s like ‘They hung me on a cross because I crossed the street. C’mon. What’s going on?’ And it’s true, you know, she’s one of those people where the slightest little thing and it’s like, "Oh my god, Britney’s a crack addict. Wow!’

Q: Well, out in public without her drawers on and showing it is more than a little …

Ne-Yo: I don’t know if that was purposely done but I mean, you know, she’s … I don’t know. I’m not gonna sit here and make no excuses for Britney.

"Stomp the Yard” opens in theaters on January 12^th. I invite you to read my interviews with the other members of the cast.