Ne-Yo – ‘Show Me’

Ne-Yo is often lost in the shuffle between the big R&B stars of the 2000s which include Usher, Chris Brown, and Trey Songz. His smooth, powerful vocals and incredible songwriting prowess allowed him to have a very consistent and successful career throughout the 2000s and the early part of the 2010s. While his hitmaking prowess has waned in the preceding decade, he has continued to write and release music, with his most recent album, 2022’s solid “Self Explanatory", showing that he was still a major star in the genre, albeit a diminished one.

Cut to 2025 and Ne-Yo is now out promoting his new single “Show Me”, a solid late-night trap-R&B love song. The lyrics are not too risque but may be a bit too raunchy for fans of his earlier work. The production is generic dated trap-R&B that dominated the genre in the mid and late-2010s. The two things that save the song are Ne-Yo’s iconic smooth vocals and his elevated songwriting. The chorus is catchy and I especially enjoyed hearing him belt and hit the high notes towards the last few seconds of the song. Clocking in at a little over 3.5 minutes, the song feels full and satisfying compared to the short two-minute songs that dominate today’s streaming era.

Modern male R&B is dying with few contemporary stars out there. In all honesty, the biggest male R&B star is Chris Brown, who has been around for 20 years. You can say that Ne-Yo is a close second or third (Usher easily being near the top of the list). However, it’s a bit concerning when the top dogs in the genre are entering middle age. My hope is that Ne-Yo can inspire a new cohort of rising male R&B singers who sing about love in a more tenderhearted way. These days modern R&B is way too literal and raunchy when it comes to lyrical content. That’s not what the essence of R&B is. “Show Me” shows that you can craft a cross-generational R&B song that young and old can bop their heads to.