Heather Faison

After 30 near-flawless shows, he seemed unstoppable — until Friday night. When neo soul’s superman took flight without his beautiful falsetto that straddles innocence and seduction, the night was a tease at best.

For followers who have deified Maxwell since the early-90s, the lover-man guise was removed and the penitent singer felt the weight of embarrassment in every cracked note.

“I can’t believe you are being so nice to me,” he said, sipping his “chicken soup in a cup.” “You deserve better.”

For months Maxwell has soaked up praises at the end of each prodigious show on his out-of-nowhere comeback tour. Critics raved at how the singer could pack venues and sell out months in advance after being out of sight for the past seven years with no more than song snippets posted on his MySpace page.

Off his voluntary detour to self-discovery, Maxwell shocked everyone with the “Black Summer’s Night” tour and brought along budding star Jazmine Sullivan. Read the rest of this entry »

How could Ne-Yo be so naïve?

The evidence of his girlfriend’s cheating ways were laid out in plain sight: whispering on the phone, sneaking in the middle of the night, sliding back in bed at 6:45 a.m.

Withholding his guilty verdict, the singer turns to her and says, “I’d rather you just tell me another lie, than to tell me the truth.”

As the song “Tell Me Another Lie” wails through World Café Live, Ne-Yo sinks his head into the lapel of his olive green military-inspired jacket.

The brim of his khaki Kangol casts a shadow over his eyes as he flashes back to the real-life incident. “I love real hard and real fast — it happens,” he says.

Ne-Yo voluntarily bared his soul for a packed house of fans at the Wired 96.5 event billed “Get To Know Ne-Yo.”

And he made sure fans did just that. Before hitting the stage, the prolific singer-songwriter walked through tracks from his forthcoming release, “Year of The Gentleman.” Some moments were so poignant — after attending the wedding of an ex he wrote “Fade Into The Background” — one could almost picture the writer bent over a worn down legal pad, ink smeared by his tears. Read the rest of this entry »