Heather Faison

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 »

The concert headliner came unsuspectingly into the neon red media room. Breezing past a line of anxious teens fiddling with their camera straps, he flashed a smile showing his ubiquitous gap and gave a modest, “Hello.” That’s Lupe Fiasco.

For a Grammy Award-winning rapper who has been deified for saving hip-hop from its mindless spiral, Lupe doesn’t make a lot of noise when he enters a room; but the message in his music says plenty.

Branded the “hip-hop nerd,” the Chicago native is known for his socially deep lyrics with quirky injections of robots and video games. But don’t relegate him to Backpack Mountain. Lupe’s Gillette-sharp wordplay keeps him in the company of rhymers like Kanye West, Jay-Z and Southern rap pioneer Bun B.

Off the strength of his hit song “Superstar,” fans flocked to his shows on the Kanye West headlined “Glow in the Dark” tour (also featuring Rhianna and N.E.R.D), arguably the biggest concert of the year.

Fiasco sat surrounded by Coca-Cola branding in Philly’s Electric Factory, Sunday, noticeably tired from performing before a crowd of 75,000 at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago just the day before.

So what is he doing in a room of ogling teenagers? Read the rest of this entry »