Ne-Yo Takes a Country Road With ‘Highway 79’: ‘We Wanted to Make Music People Related To’
Categoria: Musica
Ne-Yo builds upon his previous country collaborations on his new country-inspired album.
Por Billboard | 16/07/2026
When Ne-Yo first came to Nashville in 2012 to record “She Is” with Tim McGraw for Ne-Yo’s album R.E.D., he says he immediately connected with the city’s relaxed writing and recording style. “That’s when I realized it’s done a little different in Nashville,” Ne-Yo tells Billboard . “I was expecting to pull up to a studio, but I pulled up to Tim and Faith [Hill]’s home. Tim’s at the door with no shoes on. Faith is in the kitchen, and she made food for everybody, and we just sat in the living room and talked about life and songs. Tim’s always been super supportive of me, just an all-around good dude.” With his first full-fledged, country-inspired album Highway 79 , which released July 10 on HSG Ventures/10K Projects, Ne-Yo set out to recreate that same laid-back feel in the studio. “I was like, ‘I want that vibe all over again,’” he says. Ne-Yo spent four months in Nashville, writing with artists, writers and producers including Luke Laird, Breland, Chuck Harmony, Claude Kelly, Dave Cohen and Lady A’s Charles Kelley. He previewed the album’s blend of R&B and soul sounds with songs including the tender “Simple Things” and the party anthem “Up Out and Gone.” “When I decided I wanted to do something country-inspired, right away the thought was to go to Nashville. It just didn’t make sense to try to do something in the country vein without touching the mecca of country music,” he says. “We didn’t go into the studio trying to make hits. We wanted to make music that people related to — regular people, everybody.” Those sessions produced songs like “If I Roped the Moon,” inspired by a line his co-writer Kelley brought to the session: “If I rope the moon, you would still want the stars.” “It’s such a classic country metaphor,” Ne-Yo says. “Without even hearing the full song, you hear that line, and you feel something right away.” Ne-Yo also collaborated with Breland on the high-energy “Dance Right Now.” “That was the only real preset thing we did in regard to the music,” Ne-Yo says. “With every session, I wanted to go in and just do whatever felt right. But for this session, I was like, ‘I got a couple slow situations. I needed something with some tempo.’ So, the music kind of came first, then from there we just started brainstorming on what the subject matter was going to be. The premise of the whole song is meeting someone in a nightclub, and it’s like, “I could sit here and try to figure out who you are, or you can sit there and try to figure out who I am — or we could just dance and worry about all of that other stuff later.” It was Ne-Yo’s mother who helped spark the idea for the album title for Highway 79 , a nod to the road that connects Ne-Yo’s hometown of Camden, Arkansas (two hours south of Little Rock) with Bearden, Arkansas, where his extended family lived. “It was like double-wides, trailer parks, the whole nine,” Ne-Yo says of growing up in Arkansas before his family later relocated to Las Vegas. “I’ll say my love for the