The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and later stayed at the top spot for nine weeks. Ī breakthrough came when Ne-Yo wrote " Let Me Love You" for American singer Mario. Blige, B2K, Faith Evans, and Musiq, among others. Ne-Yo has also contributed songs to singers Mary J. He contributed songs to American singer Teedra Moses's 2004 album Complex Simplicity, Christina Milian's It's About Time, and the American boy band Youngstown, none of which, however, brought Ne-Yo much mainstream attention. įor the next two years, Ne-Yo continued writing songs, some of which have not been officially released. The release of the song led to Ne-Yo being recognized as a top songwriter. Houston re-recorded the song and released it as a single for his 2003 album MH. American singer Marques Houston happened to hear " That Girl", which Ne-Yo had planned to release as his debut single from his then-unreleased album.
Music career 1998–2005: Career beginnings Īfter Envy disbanded in 2000, Columbia Records signed Ne-Yo, but the label dropped him before he could release his already-recorded first album. The stage name Ne-Yo was coined by Big D Evans, a producer with whom Ne-Yo once worked, because Evans claimed that Ne-Yo sees music like the character Neo sees the Matrix. The group disbanded in 2000, and Smith continued to write songs for other artists before starting his solo career.
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While in the Las Vegas Academy, Smith adopted the stage name GoGo and joined an R&B group called Envy, who appeared during amateur night on Showtime at the Apollo and on the short lived MTV series The Cut (hosted by Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of TLC). In hopes of better opportunity, his mother relocated the family to Las Vegas, Nevada. As a young child, he was raised by his mother after she separated from his father. Shaffer Chimere Smith was born in Camden, Arkansas, to an African American father and a mother of African American and Chinese American descent.