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Ne-Yo’s upcoming country-inspired record was “like a breath of fresh air,” to the R&B icon.
The Grammy-winning artist reflected on his creative process during the making of Highway 79, arriving this month, in a recent interview with iHeartRadio. Ne-Yo said he’s “normally accustomed to studio situations,” which he compared to “a cave. There’s no windows. It’s an environment created for creating music, and that’s that.” But when he spent months recording his new project in Nashville, Tennessee, “it was more of, ‘yeah, man, pull up to the house and let's sit in the living room with no shoes on.’ I'm playing the guitar and somebody going to tell a joke and everybody laughs and then we go, ‘wait a minute, hey,’ that's ... The whole first half of the recording process was that, which was like a breath of fresh air to me because I needed the music to feel like something again. The process of making music had started feeling real robotic and commercial and just started feel like a job, to be honest with you.”
Ne-Yo’s ‘Highway 79’ Embodies ‘The Stuff That Really, Truly Matters’
Now, Ne-Yo says recording Highway 79 — named for the highway he often took in his home state of Arkansas, before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada — in Nashville with his family joining him in Music City made him realize, “this is the stuff that really and truly matters.”
The first single Ne-Yo debuted from the country-inspired record, “Simple Things,” embodies that message. He released the song in November 2025 as he marked the 20th anniversary of his debut single, “So Sick.” At that time, he also attended the Country Music Association Awards and made his debut on the historic Grand Ole Opry stage (which he admitted was “absolutely terrifying,” performing at a venue known for its “country royalty,” and approaching that moment with the utmost respect). Ne-Yo’s subsequent releases included “Up Out and Gone,” “Ms. Tundra” and “Thinking What I’m Thinking.” Ne-Yo described “Up Out and Gone” his tribute to Nashville’s historic Lower Broadway, “catching the vibe and the energy” of Nashville’s iconic stretch of honky tonks. “Ms. Tundra” is “in dedication to my thicker sisters,” he said. “She ranks right up there with ‘Miss Independent.’” “Thinking What I’m Thinking” is hailed a “reflective, emotionally intimate track…that explores the fragile space between two people growing apart,” states a previously-issued press release.
Approaching Country Music With Respect
Ne-Yo previously opened up about warnings he received about Nashville, including that others in the music industry wouldn’t accept his musical pursuits. The So Sick superstar said his experience has been the complete opposite, including during an interview on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast.
“Just the fact that Nashville is ... I mean, mind you, it's the music industry. So, you get egos and attitudes everywhere you go. That's just kind of what it is to be in the music industry,” Ne-Yo shared with iHeartRadio. “But Nashville, at least from my experience, it's one of the last places that I went to record where it wasn't about what you had done prior or who you were or how much money you had or how many hits you had. It was about three or four people getting together and trying to create the kind of song that they would want to listen to in the car when we left. That was the whole energy and it just felt good. You know what I mean? It felt like home. It was that feeling of my first album when there was no real expectation. We were just doing what felt good. That’s what this album feels like to me.
“I didn't want to disrespect the genre, disrespect any of the artists that had come before me in this genre,” he added later, reflecting on why that moment meant so much to him. “I don't think that it would've been right for me to come out and say, ‘This is a country album,’ when this is my first attempt at anything even remotely country, and there's artists that eat, sleep, live and breathe country music all day long, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I felt like it'd be distressed when you do that. So, I needed to make sure that people knew that I was being genuine with this music as opposed to putting on a cowboy hat, ‘No, now your country.’ No, it was more to it than that. And yeah, the Grand Ole Opry was kind of a thumbs up for me like, ‘OK, you're doing the right thing. You're doing the right thing.’ …I wanted to do well. I wanted to do well. I wanted to impress and I feel like I did unless everybody lies to me while I got offstage. I feel like I did. So, it was good.”
Why Country Music ‘Hits Home’ For Ne-Yo
Ne-Yo’s country inspiration began with Reba McEntire, remembering his appreciation for the storytelling in “Fancy.” From there, he continued listening to the genre via Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and other mainstays in the genre. Ne-Yo was struck by the vulnerability, pointing out that artists “weren't about being embarrassed about your shortcomings that were about embracing just the human element of it.” He said country music “hits home for me” because of its honesty.
“I think that a lot of pop music, R&B music, hip-hop music makes you feel like you have to be the coolest guy in a room, otherwise you're not valued, you're not loved, you're not appreciated, you don't fit in. And country music has always seemed to me to be the opposite of that. We don't need you to be the richest guy in the room. I don't need you to get all the girls. I don't need you to be the smoothest, the suavest, the most debonair, I just need you to be real. And that reality is humanity and that humanity is enough. And country music has always, again, celebrated that and I just kind of needed some of that. You know what I mean? It's like again, all of the things that we make important that are not important, but to everybody that are important, I needed to get back to the things that are genuinely and truly important. And that's how this music makes you feel. Does it make you feel anything? Music is about more than just something that makes you want to dance or it makes you want to consume alcohol. It's just more than music. So yeah, that's what it was for me, just getting back to the music actually invoking some sort of emotion and feeling as opposed to just beats and sounds.”
“I was very, very big on making sure that nobody felt disrespected or that I was doing my best country impersonation or whatever the case may be. So, I knew that I wanted the music to have that twang and that vocabulary and that cadence. But again, I needed it to be real. I needed it to not feel like, again, that Ne-Yo decides to put on a cowboy hat, now all of a sudden this country. So worked with a lot of different producers, a lot of amazing producers. And we did everything from just straight up honky-tonk to things that kind of toe the lines between country and R&B, country and pop or whatever the case may be. And we just went with the songs that felt the best. And initially there was a traditional appetite that I had for this. I wanted to do stuff that felt like traditional country.”
“I didn't want to do anything that felt hybrid, but as the sessions rolled and as the creative juices flowed or whatever the case may be, it just kind of got to that place where it's like we don't abandon all the beautiful things that we know about pop and R&B just because we're trying to adopt some and introduce some new cadences and melodies from the country genre. There is a world where they can all exist on the same song and it's actually a pretty beautiful world. So, we find ourselves in that place a lot and yeah, it's a nice place to be. But again, don't take my word for it! Check it out when you hear the album.”
What’s Next: ‘I’m Just Eternally Grateful For It All’
Before Highway 79 makes its official debut, Ne-Yo will return to Music City for Nashville's Star-Spangled Bash on the Fourth of July. Ryan Seacrest is hosting the all-star show, which also includes Brothers Osborne, Clint Black, Little Big Town, Reba McEntire, Tim McGraw, The All-American Rejects, Boyz II Men, Elizabeth Nichols, Emily Ann Roberts, John Crist, Lauren Daigle, Nick Jonas, and Sublime. The three-hour, televised event, Disney Celebrates America: Nashville’s Star-Spangled Bash, will air live from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. CT on Saturday, July 4 on ABC, ABC News Live, which streams on Disney+ and Hulu, the ESPN App, Freeform, FX and NatGeo. Ne-Yo’s Fourth of July performance arrives as he continues his co-headlining tour with Akon. Ne-Yo said the shows have been “truly amazing.” They were “nostalgic” while simultaneously hinting at what’s next for both artists. Ne-Yo admitted he was “a little worried” about how the audience would receive his country-inspired music; however, fans sang along and “it felt good,” he shared.
“I feel like my fans are very versatile,” he said. If you like R&B music and pop music and electronic music, you can all come to the same one concert and now we've added the country genre to that as well. So it's just one big party full of feel-good music. Everybody's invited. But you have to make it you though. I feel like that's the part that people miss when people try to jump genres and do other forms of music, it's like, OK, but it still has to be you. It has to be you doing this type of music as opposed to you pretending to be something you're not. …I think the thing that makes it the barrier breaker that it is when it's genuine, when it's you being who you are, just being who you are for this genre, being who you are for that genre.
“Blessed. (I feel) Blessed,” Ne-Yo said when asked how he feels as he looks ahead to what’s next. “Man, I feel like attention spans are getting shorter. The world is getting weirder. They love you one second. They hate you the same millisecond of that same second. And for me to be rocking still, not only just surviving but thriving 20 some odd years in, it just goes to show that regardless of trend, fad or whatever the case may be, when you stay true and genuine and authentic to who you are and what you do the way you do it, then sky's the limit. ...I try to lock myself into timeless things so that I in fact remain timeless and I guess I'm doing it all right. I guess I'm doing it right because I'm still here,” he said. “But again, every day it's me thanking God that I get to love my job because I know people that don't. I know people my age and older that hate what they do for a living and that is not my reality. So I'm just eternally grateful for it all.”
Highway 79 will release on July 10.