Story by DeWayne Rogers
Images by Michael Melendy for Steed Media Service
Grammy Awards. Platinum-selling albums. Fortune. Fame. The notches on singer-songwriter Shaffer “Ne-Yo” Smith’s professional belt rival the accomplishments of seasoned entertainers twice his age. Yet in a move that has come to exemplify the true humility of the 28-year-old chart topper, Ne-Yo has taken the praise reserved for him and deflected it to a group of people he deems worthy of higher praise. Mothers.
National newswires have been abuzz lately, all documenting the altruistic Mother’s Day gesture by Ne-Yo and his Compound Foundation. The singer is scheduled to host a Mother’s Day Brunch Serenade to honor 50 metropolitan Atlanta foster and single mothers. In preparation for what is sure to be an overwhelmingly emotional day, Ne-Yo sat down with rolling out to discuss the origins of his compassion for mothers and was joined by his own mother, Lorraine.
ro: What does Mother’s Day mean to you?
Ne-Yo: Well, there’s so much that I want to say about my mother. She was mom. She was dad. She was the enforcer. She was everything … not always everything that I wanted, but she was always everything that I needed. So Mother’s Day is a celebration of the woman who made me who I am.
Lorraine: My mom is still with me, so I’m grateful for that. To me Mother’s Day is everything that [my son] said, plus the fact that you always have a friend. When children are a certain age, you really can’t savor the friendship role, but once they become adults, then you can be friends. And if you’ve done it right, hopefully, you will have a friend that you can rely on as much as they rely on you. So to me, Mother’s Day is a celebration of the things that I did right with my kids.
ro: Can you elaborate on how your friendship and bond has helped you get through life’s tough moments?
Lorraine: I always wanted to have an open relationship with my kids, even when they were small. When I felt that they were old enough, I even began to talk with them about a lot of things that most mothers weren’t talking about with their kids. Instead of just telling them that they couldn’t have something, I would explain to them why they couldn’t have it, whether it was me having to pay the light bill or whatever. I just feel like as long as there is good communication between [a] mom and [her] children, then that friendship just naturally happens.
Ne-Yo: I didn’t realize how important communication was until I started going over to my friends’ houses and began to see how they would communicate with their moms. My relationship with my mother was so different than theirs, and I would ask them why their mothers talked to them like that. My mom would always talk to us like we were adults, and would never give us baby talk. Another thing was that she never said, ‘because I said so.’ There was always an explanation. When I was over at my friends’ house it was always, ‘Shut up!’ before they could even say anything. It wasn’t that way with my mom.
ro: Ne-Yo, do you feel that the way you were encouraged to express yourself in your household helped your development as an artist and a songwriter?
Ne-Yo: In my house, I was raised to embrace emotion, as opposed to the way the average male was raised. You know, ‘a man ain’t supposed to cry,’ and ‘he’s supposed to be strong all the time.’ I was taught that it’s impossible to be strong all the time. Nobody’s strong all the time, and it’s OK to not be strong all the time. Everybody needs someone to fall back on. That definitely helped me to be able to write songs, and I don’t think that I could write songs from both a male and female perspective if I [hadn’t been] raised to embrace my emotions.
ro: Lorraine, there are so many single mothers in our community who are struggling just to get by, and who may be on the verge of giving up. Having been a single mother, what would you say to encourage and inspire them to keep pressing forward?
Lorraine: What I would say to single mothers is ‘think about the dream that you had.’ We have all had a dream at some point, so think about the dream that you may not have been able to reach, and see that in your children. I was always interested in music, and I always thought that I had a nice voice and I wanted to sing. But it didn’t happen for me. Thank God it happened for my son though … I always tried to encourage him and let him know that he could do it. I know that times can get hard, and there are times when you think you’re not going to be able to make it. That’s when you need to fall down on your knees and pray. When you look into your children’s eyes, and they look back into your eyes and let you know that they need you to be there, that should encourage you to try a little bit harder to make it.
ro: On the flip side, Ne-Yo what would you say to the children of single parents to encourage them to stop giving their mothers a hard time and to start supporting what they are going through as a single parent.
Ne-Yo: To any child that’s giving their mother unnecessary burdens, all you’re doing is hurting yourself in the long run. This woman is breaking her back daily for you. Life is not about getting what you want, whenever you want it. That’s not how it goes. And I think that the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be. Your mom is going to give you what you need when you need it. Stand by her.
ro: Ne-Yo, you and your mother are clearly devoted to each other, can you put the depths of your lover for her into words?
Ne-Yo: I used to watch TV a lot when I was younger, and I would hear people talk about dying for someone. I never understood what they meant, and would always say that they were crazy. But now that I’m older, I understand what they were saying. I can honestly say that I would die for my mother. I really would.
